For so long infallible, Kenenisa Bekele was returned to the ranks of mere mortals when injury ended his personal monopoly of the track's long distance prizes at last autumn's world championships.
Mo Farah was among those to duly profit, claiming the 5000 metres crown that had been held by the Ethiopian who was left to watch and reflect on what might have been.
It was a depressing spell, Bekele reflects. Not even the hands-on role he has assumed in building a 55-bedroom luxury hotel in his home city of Bekoji proved a sufficient distraction. The man who has won more world athletics titles (22) than anyone else craves victory and nothing less.
Now fully recovered, the 29-year-old will begin the reclamation of his throne in today's Bupa Great Edinburgh Cross Country, competing against several of his African rivals over 3 kilometres amid a series of races in Holyrood Park. Ominously for his would-be pretenders, Bekele is fully intent on retaining his status as 5000 and 10000 Olympic champion this summer.
If that sounds like a warning to Farah, then so be it. The Londoner merits his position among the elite, affirms the master but he will not be waved past to satisfy any patriotic fervour. "He improved very well, especially last year. It was a good time for Mo Farah," Bekele states. "But I absolutely feel I can improve.
"After 2011, I got better. I'm fitter. I'm healthy. So 2012 will be a good season I feel. I'm not threatened by anybody. If I try my best, anything can happen. In sport, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. You can't be assured of staying in a winning position. I'm not frightened."
Bekele will not have an easy start in Edinburgh when he faces fellow Olympic champions Asbel Kiprop and Brimim Kipruto, as well as Eliud Kipchoge, who won this race last year. While the domestic challenge in the short course event will be led by Ricky Stevenson and Scottish 1500 metres champion Alastair Hay.
Their televised clash will be the climax of a 13-race bill which also incorporates the Scottish Inter District Championships. While the men's 8K and women's 6K will form part of an international challenge which pits Great Britain – with six Scots in its ranks, including Freya Murray, Steph Twell and Derek Hawkins – against the US and a strong European select squad.
Ireland's Fionnuala Britton will compete for the latter, fresh from landing the European title last month in Slovenia, a victory which secured her favoured status in her homeland. Long desperate for a successor to cross country greats like Sonia O'Sullivan and John Treacy, the 27-year-old from Wicklow admits she was a little embarrassed by the fervour she received upon her return home.
"It was December so there was no GAA so I think that's why it got more coverage," she modestly proclaims. "If it had happened around the time of the All-Ireland final, I'm not sure as many people would have noticed."
Her rivals in Edinburgh will certainly have taken note. There will be no further anonymity for Britton, who now has greater expectations weighing on her diminutive frame. Better that than a forecast of futility, she shrugs.
"I was fourth in the Euro Cross in 2010 and I know how much it made me want to beat the girls who'd finished in front of me," she confirms. "It's going to be the same here, where they're out to beat me. At least I understand that so it's going to make me want to push myself even harder."
Application will be needed if Britton is to successfully turn her hand from steeplechase, where she reached the world championship final in 2007, to her intended Olympic disciplines of 5000 and 10000 metres. She considered what many considered to be a natural switch last spring but baulked at the last. In retrospect, having fallen short at last autumn's world's in Daegu, it was a mis-judgement.
"I think there was a part of me that needed to do it last summer, just to bring it to an end and prove to myself that there was nothing better left," she says. Britton, and Ireland, now expects more.
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