 The grieving Bekele has pulled out of the Edinburgh event |
Olympic 10,000m silver medallist Ejagayehu Dibaba will head a strong Ethiopian presence at Saturday's Great Edinburgh Cross Country. Dibaba will be out to beat Australian Benita Johnson, who beat her to the world long-course title last March.
Gebre Gebremariam and Dejene Berhanu have been recruited to strengthen the meeting, following the withdrawal of countryman Kenenisa Bekele.
Olympic 10,000m champion Bekele pulled out following the death of his fiancee.
Kenya's 20-year-old world 5,000m title holder Eliud Chepchoge, who was second last year in Newcastle, agreed to run earlier this week.
Gebremariam was second in the 2004 World Cross Country Championships behind Bekele, while Berhanu ran the fastest half marathon ever on British soil to win last September's BUPA Great North Run.
World 3,000m steeplechase champion Saif Saaeed Shaheen of Qatar and European champion Sergiy Lebid also run.
Alem Tachale, who was due to marry Bekele in May, collapsed while on a training run with him on the outskirts of the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.
Bekele, a two-time winner when the event was staged in Newcastle, is scheduled to run in the Boston Indoor Games on 29 January, the Norwich Union Grand Prix in Birmingham in February and the World Cross Country Championships at the end of March.
Bekele was beaten only once in 2004, when he finished runner-up to Moroccan Hicham El Guerrouj in the Olympic 5,000m final.
But he relieved Haile Gebreselassie of his Olympic 10,000m crown and his 5,000m and 10,000m world records.
MMIX
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