Defending champ Tadesse bids to live up to hype

LAST year even Zersenay Tadesse himself appeared shocked when he stood on the podium to accept the gold medal at the world cross-country championships in Mombasa.

Now a superstar in his Eritrean homeland, he was even more astonished when he arrived here in Edinburgh in defence of his title and found himself dwarfed by his own image towering on a poster 12 metres above his head.

“It surprised me. It is very nice,” he admitted but one could sense he knew only too well that this magnificent figure emerging from between the flags of many nations could work against him and, have no doubt, it will.