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+---- Thread: Gebremeskel seeking Carlsbad history (/Thread-Gebremeskel-seeking-Carlsbad-history)
Gebremeskel seeking Carlsbad history - TheEd - 04-04-2013
CARLSBAD, Calif. - A historic race legendary for fast runners and world-class performances, two-time champion
Dejen Gebremeskel can make history at the Carlsbad 5000 on Sunday, April 7, 2013.
If the 23-year-old Ethiopian wins the 'World's Fastest 5K' for the third consecutive year, he would join an elite group of three-time champions in the race's 28-year history: American
Steve Scott (1986-88), Kenyan Sammy Kipketer (2000-02) and Ethiopian Dejene Berhanu (2003-05). Since Gebremeskel also finished second in 2010, the combination of three victories and a second would make him the most successful men's runner ever at the event.
Gebremeskel also will be attempting to break Kipketer's race and world road record of 13:00, set in 2000 and then matched a year later. Like Kipketer, Gebremeskel's first two victories were in the exact same time, 13:11. Oddly, that also was the winning time in 2010, when Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge beat Gebremeskel by seven seconds.
Although Gebremeskel won the silver medal in the 5,000 meters at last summer's London Olympics, along with a silver medal in the same event at the 2011 World Championships, he will not have an easy path to another Carlsbad title. The men's field is filled with a group of formidable contenders, led by his countrymen Tariku Bekele and Hagos Gebrehiwet, as well as Olympic 1,500m silver medalist, Leo Manzano
of the United States, who is making his 5K road racing debut.