Bekele squeaked out a win in Edinburgh over defending World Cross champ Tadesse, and Eliud Kipchoge. Ritz was 5th, having gone out with the lead pack, fallen off and then worked his way back into contact before the final bit of racing. Solid result for him: a little over 10 seconds back in a 9300m race... but hardly the kind of race that makes one think he can hang at World Cross when there are full squads from Ethiopia, Kenya, Eritrea, Tanzania, etc, etc. etc. I would love to see him crack the Top 10 on the senior level some day, but more and more I wonder if it will happen, regardless of whether he can stay healthy. As an aside, Bekele's facade of cross country invincibility has taken a serious blow, of late - even this defeat of top foes lacks the effortless dominance he used to display. Last year he was tops in the same trio here, with a 10-second gap on 2nd place... and Tadesse still took home the serious hardware in March...
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