A 42-year old man finished 16th in a 10 kilometre race in Manchester last Sunday. He crossed the finish line, flashed his trademark smile and said: “I’m retiring from competitive running, not from running. You cannot stop running, this is my life”
His name is Haile Gebrselassie. There has been no greater distance runner in history.
At his pomp they called him “King Haile.” Over his two-decade career, he set 27; say that slowly, T-W-E-N-T-Y S-E-V-E-N world records. Across events as diverse as the 1500 metres to the marathon, when this puny Ethiopian ran, he was very hard to catch.
“How I felt while running would depend on the preparation and training I have done,” he told me on a visit to India last year. I asked what went through his mind when he ran. “If I was in New York, I thought about home,” he said. “And yes, I would be nervous depending on the race.”
Nervous? Watch the final moments of this.
Sydney Olympics 2000. On the home stretch of the 10,000 metres, Gebrselassie is trailing Paul Tergat. The Kenyan appears determined to extract revenge for finishing second in Atlanta four years go. But in the final few metres, he can feel a menacing presence over his shoulder.
He is nearing.
He is by his side now.
Tergat lunges in desperation, urging his exhausted body towards the finish line.
No. Noo. Nooo.
Gebrselassie delivers the fatal final kick. He is past him. He has the Gold medal.
Now watch this.
Same race. Observe the faces. Gebrselassie has the prey in sight. He times his attack to perfection. He leaves the rival utterly defeated. Punctured. Dazed.
Gebrselassie told me this was the moment he “cherished” most from his career. A career that saw him win two Olympic gold medals and nine world titles. A career that began simply because as one of ten siblings there was only one way to get to school, ten kilometres from the farm the family lived on. Run.
That daily routine birthed a distinctive running posture, with his left arm crooked as if still holding his books. I asked Gebrselassie why that never changed. He chuckled. “I tried, my first coach did a lot with my running style, but it stayed. It’s not too bad, I accept it!”
Grapevine suggests Gebrselassie is eyeing a career in politics and could one day enter the race to be Ethiopia’s President. “For the moment, I am focused on other things. We’ll see in the future, who knows,” he told me.
This much is for sure. In his remarkable life Haile Gebrselassie has already shown, if he enters a race, he usually wins.
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