Tergat and Ngugi finally celebrate end of jinx

• It has been 11 long and agonising years of waiting for the senior men’s gold

“It’s unfortunate since countries like Kenya and Ethiopia use the event as a build up to many other world events. I hope it will in future revert to an annual festival,” said Tergat.

Ngugi alleged pure jealousy, saying some countries, especially from Europe, were not happy with the Kenyan and Ethiopian dominance.

“They scrapped the short course (four-kilometre) race and brought it back thinking that one of their own will win but that never happened,” Ngugi said.

Ngugi is the first Kenyan to win senior men’s 12km race in 1986 in Switzerland and was to make a clean sweep for the following three years.

Khalid Skah of Morocco interrupted to win in 1990 and 1991 but Ngugi reclaimed the title for his fifth crown in 1992. Then William Sigei won the 1993 and 1994 championships before Tergat ascended to the throne for an unprecedented five straight wins from 1995-1999.

He became the first man in history to win the race five times in a row.

Since then, no Kenyan had won the race with Mohammed Mourhit of Belgium going for the 2000 and 2001 honours before Bekele made a sweep from 2002 to 2006 to even Tergat’s record.

Eritrea’s Zersenay Tadese was to break the Ethiopian’s dominance in Mombasa in 2007 but Bekele recaptured the title the following year in Edinburgh before another Ethiopian, Gebre-egziabher Gebremariam, won it last year in Amman.