Tola surged clear and never looked back (Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)After letting the little-known Eyob Faniel of Italy lead for most of the first half of the race, Tola made his first move just before the halfway mark.
Tola crossed the line an Olympic record time (Andrej Isakovic/AFP via Getty Images)Most remarkably, Tola didn’t even make the Ethiopian team originally.
“I trained hard so I could win,” Tola said.
Even his compatriot, Kenenisa Bekele, one of the most decorated Ethiopian distance runners but at 42 nearing the end of his career, was gushing after finishing 39th.
“Not easy to win the Olympic Games,” he said, in perhaps the understatement of the past two weeks in Paris.
Persons:
Tamirat Tola, Tola, Cameron Spencer, ”, Bikila, Bikele, Belgium’s Bashir Abdi, Kenya’s Benson Kipruto, Eliud, victoire appartient, Napoleon, Roland Garros, Andrej Isakovic, Tola didn’t, “, ” Tola, Connor Mantz, Akira Akasaki, ” Mantz, Clayton Young, Abdi, Kenenisa Bekele, ” Bekele, Denisa Geleta, Kipruto
Organizations:
“, East, Getty, Ethiopian, Boston Marathon, Olympic
Locations:
Ethiopia, Invalides, Paris, Versailles, Eugene , Ore, New York, Italy, Rome, Tokyo, Kenya, AFP, Japan