Skip to main content

Team Honda's Ibrahim Jeilan Wins World Championships 10000 m (updated with coach's comments)

10000 m world champion Ibrahim Jeilan with Honda teammates. Photo by Takashi Horiguchi - click to enlarge.

In a tense and turbulent World Championships 10000 m full of turnover at the head of the pack, Saitama-based 2006 World Jr. 10000 m and 2008 World Jr. XC champion Ibrahim Jeilan (Ethiopia/Team Honda) pulled off a darkhorse win by running down world leader Mo Farah (Great Britain) in the home stretch to take his first senior world title.  In so doing he achieved the historic feat of becoming the first man to beat world record holder Kenenisa Bekele (Ethiopia) over the 10000 m distance.  Jeilan's coach at Honda, Kiyoshi Akimoto, told JRN shortly after the race, "This result belongs to both Jeilan and the rest of the coaching staff.  He has taken the Japanese lifestyle and training methodology to heart deeply and is truly a superb athlete."

Jeilan also beat Japan-based Kenyans Martin Mathathi (Suzuki Hamamatsu AC), the 2007 World Championships bronze medalist and 10 mile world junior record holder, and Paul Tanui (Team Kyudenko), this year's World XC silver medalist.  Both Mathathi and Tanui were among the many who led the race before the final kilometer which Jeilan blazed in under 2:27.  "Japan-based Kenyan" is a common enough phrase, but Jeilan's outstanding victory may well herald the rise of the Japan-based Ethiopians.

Following the lead of the Japanese women in the 10000 m, 27:38 man Yuki Sato (Team Nissin Shokuhin), the sole Japanese man in the 10000 m, was second-to-last, a limp 15th in 29:04.15.

2011 World Championships Men's 10000 m
Daegu, Korea, 8/28/11
click here for complete results

1. Ibrahim Jeilan (Ethiopia/Team Honda) - 27:13.81
2. Mohamed Farah (Great Britain) - 27:14.07
3. Imane Merga (Ethiopia) - 27:19.14
4. Zerseney Tadese (Eritrea) - 27:22.57
5. Martin Mathathi (Kenya/Suzuki AC) - 27:23.87
6. Peter Kirui (Kenya) - 27:25.63 - PB
7. Galen Rupp (U.S.A.) - 27:26.84
8. Sileshi Sihine (Ethiopia) - 27:34.11
9. Paul Tanui (Kenya/Team Kyudenko) - 27:54.03
10. Matthew Tegenkamp (U.S.A.) - 28:41.62
-----
15. Yuki Sato (Team Nissin Shokuhin) - 29:04.15
DNF - Kenenisa Bekele (Ethiopia)
Labels:

Comments

yuza said…
Great race and a great race!

I was hoping for a bit more from Sato, but not worry.
August 29, 2011 at 7:43 PM
Anonymous said…
This is turning into a pretty depressing meet for the Japanese distance team :(

Even the usually reliable women's marathon team under-performed.

The success of the Japanese based Africans (1st, 5th and 9th!)make you wonder how much of the blame should be placed on the athletes.
August 30, 2011 at 12:16 AM
Anonymous said…
Did Jeylan stay in Japan before the start of the champs or did he move back to Addis Ababa to train with the rest of the Ethiopians?
September 3, 2011 at 6:35 PM
Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Waseda Leads Top 7 Teams Under Izumo Ekiden CR, Ivy League Best-Ever 3rd (updated)

3rd last year, Waseda University scored its first Izumo Ekiden win since 2010, taking almost 2 minutes off the CR and leading the top 7 teams under the old record of 2:07:51 for the complete 6-stage, 45.1 km course. Waseda was 16 seconds back in 7th after the First Stage, but its 2nd runner Ojiro Honda made that up easily and put them 6 seconds out front. A massive 22:56 CR for the 8.5 km Third Stage by Shadrack Kipkemei (Nihon Univ.) dropped Waseda back to 2nd even though its runner Ryuki Suzuki broke the old CR too, but back-to-back CR on the next 2 stages by 1st-year Haruki Niizuma and Shunpei Yamaguchi put anchor Shinsaku Kudo out of reach of the rest of the field. Kudo duly won the 10.2 km anchor stage in 29:00, bypassing a 2:06 time entirely for a new 2:05:56 CR, just under 2:48/km average pace for the complete course. Defending champ Koku Gakuin University struggled a bit in the first half of the race but came on strong in the longer second half with 4th and 5th runners...
8 comments
Read more

Kipyegon Repeats, Toyo Wins Hakone Ekiden Qualifier in First Appearance in 21 Years

Back for the first time in 21 years after a disastrous 14th-place finish at the 102nd Hakone Ekiden this past January, Toyo University hit one out of western Tokyo's Showa Kinen Park with a solid win at the Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai, the half marathon that serves as the official qualifying race for the 103rd Hakone Ekiden. The top 10 teams in the Hakone auto-qualify for the following year, with the rest having to run the Yosenkai in October with a squad of 10 to 16 runners out of which the top 10 score on aggregate time, with the 10 fastest schools joining the Hakone field and top individuals from non-qualifying teams names to the Kanto Region Student Alliance select team to make up the complete Hakone field of 21. Driven in large part by an aggressive run from 3rd-year Yu Miyazaki , one of only 2 Japanese athletes to go with the big African contingent up front, Toyo won in 10:31:30, 1:03:09 or 2:59.6/km per athlete. As the first team to have broken the 3:00/km average pace barrie...
1 comment
Read more

Ngetich and Mutiso Take Down Tokyo Legacy Half CR

In its 5th edition the Tokyo Legacy Half Marathon scored 2 new course records via Kenyans from the Ikaika agency, with 10 km WR holder Agnes Ngetich blasting 3 minutes off the old record to win by over 4 in 1:04:23, and Alexander Mutiso skimming just 1 second under the CR for the win by 5 seconds in 59:51. The 2 races played out completely differently, even if the paydays were the same for the winners. Surrounded by an envelope of male runners all the way to the final 100 m, Ngetich was out hard on the downhill in the first 5 km, hitting it on sub-64 pace in 15:08 before leveling out on the flat middle 10 km. Her next 2 splits projected to 1:04:09 and 1:04:17, and even with the uphill back to the stadium in the last 5 km she didn't fall far off from that, winning in 1:04:23. Runner-up Tabitha Njeri Kamau was nearly a mile back in 1:08:28, with Kamau's Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo teammate Kazuna Kanetomo dropping a 1:10:17 PB for 3rd. Now an independent, track Olympian Kaede Ha...
2 comments
Read more