by Alfonz Juck
ADDIS ABABA (ETH: Daily Nation informs that Ethiopia athletics could be headed for turmoil after legendary Haile Gebrselassie led active and former athletes and coaches to a meeting on Tuesday to discuss Rio Olympic selection and poor management by their athletics federation. The meeting held at Addis Ababa Stadium, with over 80 young and senior athletes in attendance, including the 2004 and 2008 Olympic 10,000m champion Kenenisa Bekele who had earlier protested his exclusion from the marathon team for Rio Olympics.
RunBlogRun opines: The Ethiopian federation got its get out of jail card free recently, when the government pledged money to conduct deep testing on Ethiopian athletes by November 2016. Their anti-doping program is not the worst, but it is far from the best. But this should surprise no one. When RunBlogRun interviewed Kenenisa Bekele after his fine 10k win in Manchester on May 22, Kenenisa was quite clear. Bekele noted that there are other races besides the Olympics. He was beside himself that Ethiopian selectors, with his record, would not pick him for Rio. The Ethiopian federation, if reports and athletes are to be believed, remind this writer of how the Mexican federation was in the 1970s, taking up to 80 percent of athletes money and managing their racing schedules.
