Kenenisa Bekele Quotes

"Yes it hurt, it was a hard race and he made me work with everything I had for the win."

"It was a great race."

"I've achieved everything there is to accomplish in cross country. I've competed in the cross country world championships for six years and now it's time to step aside and make way for some of our younger athletes."

"As you know, I started the year with great grief. Let alone to be eligible to be for this award, I never expected to return to competition in such a way to do this well."

"It's a stress-free competition that is intended to raise awareness about the sport in China since the Olympics will be held there in three years."

"I was not trying to save any energy for tomorrow's race. The short race is the tougher race and this was the one I was concerned about."

"It was more than just perfection tonight."

"It is for me a difficult race. I had never raced under 3,000 meters, so this is a very tough race for me. Maybe for the future it gives me confidence to improve. I'm not disappointed because it's my first time."

"With no individual global championships to aim at in 2006, my focus is the Golden League this summer, and I am looking forward to challenging for the US$1 million prize."

"The race was very fantastic, ... Today, I had my brother with me. He did everything very good. Today, everything was perfect."

"Today's race was tough because of the wind. The wind made it hard to break away and I needed every ounce of strength to pull away from the other runners."

"It's not always easy when it's your first competition. I'm happy that I won."

"I'm very happy,"

"It gives me a lot of motivation to achieve the double for the last time. It not only brings glory to my country but to myself. It's a wonderful opportunity."

"It was a very close race. This course is flat and there was a lot of wind today and that was the reason."

"I knew I was in record shape coming into the race but sometimes the pace of the race doesn't go your way. The third lap slowed right down and I just couldn't get back onto the pace after that."