IF he were able to access footage of yesterday's Bupa Great Edinburgh cross country via whatever Internet connection is available in the mountains of Kenya, Mo Farah will have taken heart, if not pleasure, from the frailties of his presumed greatest rival for Olympic gold.
Kenenisa Bekele has long treated the sodden turf as the stage for a personal tour de force, as dominant in the wind and rain as he has been on the track during a career which has brought three Olympic titles and countless others in world championships.
At the age of 29, he is surely not a spent force. Yet few would have forecast that Kilbarchan's Callum Harkins would be among those to leave the Ethiopian legend in their wake in the elite invitational three-kilometre race. Finishing 11th, well adrift of triumphant Asbel Kiprop, was unfamiliar terrain.
"I'm not happy but what can I do?" asked Bekele, who blamed a lack of conditioning, rather than injury, for the rare disappointment. "I wanted a good position and I tried, but my body didn't respond."
Farah covets the 5000m and 10,000m crowns held by Bekele but London will be a different time and place. "I'm sure that by the time the Olympics arrive, you will see the real Bekele," the past master declared. "If I run well now, I'm afraid I won't have the energy for the Olympics."
Kiprop, the reigning Olympic 1500m champ-ion, had no qualms about the lack of a genuine challenge, winning by a five-second margin from Britain's Jonny Hay who excelled on his senior debut. It was the start the Kenyan wanted to a year in which he hopes to repeat his finest accomplishment. "At the last Olympics, I went there like any other athlete," he said. "As the defending champion, I definitely will feel more pressure in London."
There will be a similar burden of expectation on Great Britain and Northern Ireland's athletes at their home Games, but in their first collective appearance of 2012 they lived up to the hopes of spectators, winning the team international ahead of the USA and Europe.
Steph Twell, the GB skipper, relished the trophy but not her own performance after she came ninth in the senior women's 6K, four places adrift of fellow Scot Freya Murray.
Ireland's Fionnuala Britton, winner of the European Championship in Slovenia last month, maintained her form and lived up to her reput-ation after repelling the dogged pursuit of Gemma Steel. "You come over here and it's a big event," she said. "I knew I'd be the person everyone would want to chase down. So I had to run well."
Ayad Lamdassam surged to victory in the senior men's 5K with a ruthless late acceleration away from European champion Atelaw Bekele.Bobby Mack of the USA snatched second spot while Kilbarchan's Derek Hawkins was 18th.
Elsewhere, the junior men's race was claimed by Kirubel Erassa of the USA, while Emilia Gorecka claimed Britain's only individual victory of the day in the junior women's race. Beth Potter was a comfortable winner of the Scottish Inter-Districts title.
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