Bekele ready to try The Emperor's clothes for size

Paula Radcliffe's absence from today's Great North Cross Country may have taken the gloss off the first major event of 2003 but at least another of last year's stars is here. Kennenisa Bekele of Ethiopia is regarded as the future of distance running and adds much needed quality to an event that appears to be jinxed.

Radcliffe's withdrawal due to a bacterial infection completed a clean sweep in the women's event, which had already lost the Ethiopian pair Gete Wami and Derartu Tulu earlier in the week.

So relief greeted Bekele's safe arrival from Addis Ababa. With his silken stride the 20-year-old won both the men's long and short races at the world cross country championships last year in Dublin - an unprecedented feat.

Scientists believe they may have finally discovered why East Africa produces so many world-beating distance runners like Bekele. Combined with the natural advantage in some cases of being born and raised at 8,000 feet, says a Case Western Reserve University anthropologist Cynthia Beall, they have bigger blood volume, she has found, meaning oxygen is transported around their bodies more efficiently.

"If an athlete in Ethiopia has this huge blood volume he's going to have an enormous advantage at sea level," said the leading athletics physiologist David Martin.

Bekele's stock is such that he has been compared to Ethiopia's charismatic two-time Olympic champion Haile Gebrselassie. He is guided by Gebrselassie's manager Jos Hermens and has been helped by the Ethiopian legend. "I met Gebrselassie in Europe in 2000 and he helped me by talking a lot about race tactics," Bekele said. "I live about 50km from him near Addis and see him quite often."

Bekele faces tough opposition in the 9km race from the Kenyans Paul Kosgei, who is world half-marathon champion and winner of the Great North Run in October, and Sammy Kipketer, the Commonwealth 5,000m champion.

Bekele is much better than Gebrselassie across country but it remains to be seen if he can transfer that speed to the track and dethrone the man they call The Emperor.

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