Haile Gebrselassie: the boy who ran 10km to school and became 'the Emperor' of distance running
Two Olympic golds, four straight world 10,000m titles, 27 world records and four Berlin Marathon wins in a row made the Asella farm boy one of the greatest runners ever.
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Addis Ababa — Haile Gebrselassie was born on 18 April 1973 in Asella, Ethiopia, one of ten children on a farm. As a boy he ran ten kilometres to school each morning and ten back each evening, which gave him a distinctive style: his left arm crooked, as if still carrying his school books.
World champion at 20
He first made his name in 1992, winning the 5,000m and 10,000m at the World Junior Championships in Seoul. The next year he won the first of four consecutive world 10,000m titles, in 1993, 1995, 1997 and 1999. In 1994 he broke his first world record, over 5,000m, and in 1995 he lowered both the 10,000m and 5,000m records in the same summer.
He won Olympic gold over 10,000m in Atlanta in 1996 and again in Sydney in 2000. He also won four world indoor titles and the 2001 World Half Marathon Championship.
The road years
Moving to the roads later in his career, he won the Berlin Marathon four years in a row, from 2006 to 2009. In 2008 he set a world record there of 2:03:59, breaking his own mark by 27 seconds. His career total reached 27 world records and 61 Ethiopian national records, at distances from 800m to the marathon.
Nicknamed "the Emperor", he became a successful businessman after his running career and was named in 2011 among the 100 most influential Africans by New African magazine. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest long-distance runners in history.
Background: Wikipedia.
