Kenenisa Bekele made a sensational return to his international best with victory at the BMW BERLIN-MARATHON, missing the world record by just two seconds. For good measure, the 37-year-old Ethiopian set a national record and the fastest time in the world this year. Only his great Kenyan rival Eliud Kipchoge, who ran 2:01:39 here in Berlin last year, ranks above him in the world all-time list. Bekele knows all too well what it is like to miss the world record by a narrow margin. In 2016 he won in 2:03:03 which was just six seconds outside the then world record. There are also historical precedents for such narrow misses in marathon history: in 1985 the Welshman Steve Jones ran within one second of the world record in Chicago.
