10 April 2002
Gebrselassie ready to do something
special
The second Press conference of the 2002 Flora London Marathon
opened with a pop song in praise of Haile Gebrselassie performed
by a group of Ethiopian musicians and singers. Asked by the
Flora London Marathon’s International Administrator, Tim Hutchings,
if the song had been No. 1 in the Ethiopian charts, Gebrselassie,
who has set 15 world records, replied that it was No. 1 with
him.
The holder of the current world 10,000m record at 26:22.75
(set with 5km splits of 13:11.7 and 13:11.1) has arrived in
London full of confidence that he is “ready to do something
special”. In March he made a late decision to check his fitness
and entered the Lisbon Half Marathon which he duly won with
a personal best of 59:40, defeating a star-studded field which
included perennial rival Paul Tergat.
“One week before Lisbon I decided to run to check my performance
so that after I would still have time to do any training that
I needed. It was a little warm but I could have run faster,”
said Gebrselassie.
It seems that Gebrselassie is looking for a halfway time
of 62:30 saying that if you can run under one hour then 1
hour and two minutes is nothing. Although the Ethiopian has
only ever run one marathon before – a 2:48 debut at the age
of 15 (“I had the chance to see Addis Ababa, I had never seen
such high buildings”) – the lightly built track star often
runs up to 50km in training. He trains in the countryside
and forests in the company of seasoned marathoners Tesfaye
Jifar and Tesfaye Tola, both running London on Sunday.
“They have given me some advice about the second half of
the race, how to follow the pack and the London course and
I advise them about speed. We will help each other in the
race; if they win I will accept it, if I win they will accept
it.”
“When I train I like to go fast from the beginning and I
am keeping the pace up to the end. I will still run 10,000m.
I will try to take back the world 10km title. It doesn’t matter
how fast I run the Marathon, I will try to make it better.”
Haile Gebrselassie continues to live and train in Ethiopia
and has ploughed some of the money he has earned on the world’s
tracks back into his country. He currently employs 200 people
on building projects in Addis Ababa and has built a school
for 400 children in the western part of Ethiopia. With his
manager Jos Hermans he has set up the ‘Local Heroes’ project
which takes young people from the outlying districts and trains
them to return to their local areas as mentors.
“There are a lot of talented people who need support. Ethiopia
is a country with problems but you must come and see the country
as it really is – with thousands of years of history.”
With this determination to give back something to his country,
it is almost inevitable that Gebrselassie will enter politics
when he retires from running. “I will try to do something
for the people (of Ethiopia). At the moment I have a very
good relationship with the people but I will have to change
a little bit, you have to be very careful to find out what
the people want.”
Other quotes:
- Blood Testing: “I thought that it was wonderful
that London is doing blood testing.”
- Who will you be watching on Sunday? “I won’t be
thinking about any special person, there are very good performers
in the field. It is difficult to predict the race but I
have done some very good training during the last six months.”
- Do the large sums of prize money to be won add to the
pressure on you? “Money counts after running, first
we have to think of the race.”
- Why did you never become a great cross country runner?
“That is my question! But probably my style is better for
the road and track.”
- There will be over 30,000 people running on Sunday,
most of them not athletes. What advice would you give to
them? “Don’t get too close to the leading group.”
|
