"The smiling assassin" --
as he was once famously dubbed -- has been dispatching his opponents
with ruthless efficiency for over two decades and is hugely popular
wherever he runs, not least among his dedicated following of Ethiopian
fans bedecked in their country's green, yellow and red.
"Haile, Haile" will be
the chant as their hero winds up the pace before unleashing his
trademark blistering finish to leave rivals trailing.
His longtime Dutch manager Jos Hermens summed it up perfectly: "His smile makes athletics smile."
Throughout his glittering career stretching over two decades, Gebrselassie has proved an impeccable ambassador for track and field.
Despite increasing
business commitments, he is finding time to pass on that experience to
pass on to the next generation -- acting as a mentor for 14 young
athletes from disadvantaged backgrounds for the G4S 4teen program ahead of the London 2012 Olympics.
Those youngsters, who
came from around the world, would do well to heed his renowned
sportsmanship, because win or lose it was always with that smile on his
face.
"Of course there is disappointment when you lose a race," he told CNN.
"For me, it's in my character, maybe I can say good character. I am always joyful."
Glittering career
Disappointments have
proved few and far between since his first competitive race at the age
of 14 and while still in his teens he captured a 5,000/10,000 meters
double at the world junior championships in Seoul.
The next year in 1993
saw Gebrselassie's senior breakthrough as he claimed the first of four
straight 10,000m world championship titles after a battle royal with
Kenyan Moses Tanui in Stuttgart.
His
world-record-breaking spree started in 1994, covering distances from
2,000m on an indoor track to the full 42 km of the marathon.
Gebrselassie rates his 5,000m performance at the Weltklasse meeting in
Zurich in 1995 as his "most memorable achievement" -- he smashed the
record of Kenya's Moses Kiptanui by nearly 11 seconds with a time of 12
minutes 44.39 seconds. "That was amazing," he said.
Metronomically lapping
the 400m track at just over four-minute mile pace for over three miles,
he says that as he ran the beat of the 1995 hit song "Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)" kept ringing around his head.
"It's nice music, if's fast written, that's why I could break a world record, by that music," he recalls.
"I'm a Scatman! Dum dum and then you know the timing and at the same time your style changes immediately."
Olympic gold
Gebrselassie won his
first Olympic gold at Atlanta '96 over his favored 10,000m distance,
just edging out his arch-rival Paul Tergat.
Four years later, in Sydney, he became only the third man in history to retain that title -- the Kenyan again the victim.
"I won that race
nine-hundredths of a second from Paul Tergat. That was really the one
still I love to watch. It was a very special moment."
By the time the 2004
Olympics came around, the balance of power had shifted to his compatriot
Kenenisa Bekele, and Gebreselassie came fifth as he missed out on a
hat-trick, but by then he had already turned to road running and
marathons.
Olympic gold over the
classic distance has eluded him; he decided against competing in the
marathon in Beijing in 2008 because of the air quality, and was
controversially left out of the Ethiopian team for the London Games last
year.
But over distances from 10 km through half-marathon and the full marathon, the records have tumbled.
Successive wins in the
Berlin marathon in 2007 and 2008 each came with world bests, the second
of two hours three minutes and 59 seconds -- the first man under the two
hours four minute mark.
Scatman rhythm
For the longer
distances, he says the Scatman John tune is replaced by the need to set
the perfect pace and to keep a close eye on the opposition, often years
younger.
"You are just thinking
about your race. Who is next to you, who is behind you, who's in the
race, how fast does he run, what is the way breathes," he reveals.
"When you run a marathon
especially, the first 15k they're perfect, but the things happen after
20k. You can look and see, 'Oh this guy, now he's getting tired,' so
it's easy to beat him."
Years of disciplined
training, getting up at 5 a.m. each morning, have left Gebrselassie a
battle-hardened veteran and have helped him in his life outside of track
and field.
Two grueling training sessions are interspersed by a day spent in his
office -- he employs over 500 people in range of enterprises based right
across Ethiopia.
He is usually in bed by 10 p.m. after spending time with his wife and family -- he has a son and three daughters.
Gebrselassie certainly
knew the value of hard work from his formative years, growing up in
humble surroundings in the town of Asella in Arsi Province, living
nearly 2,500m above sea level.
Early inspiration
Inspired from an early
age by the 5,000/10,000 Olympic double of great Ethiopian runner Miruts
"The Shifter" Yifter in the 1980 Moscow Games -- "I was dreaming to be
like him" -- Gebrselassie acknowledges that his environment was the
perfect platform.
"We live at altitude, we were born in altitude," he says.
"Going to school,
helping our parents, fetching water from the river. My training started
when I was two. It was part of my life."
But Gebrselassie is
concerned that the neverending trail of talent from his country,
characterized by the likes of Bekele and women's champion Tirunesh
Dibaba, could be under threat from increased affluence -- welcome though
that is in a country which has suffered so much.
"Life is changing a little bit. That's why it's very difficult to produce more long-distance runners from Ethiopia," he says.
"The more good things
you have, the less athletes you have. You don't see so much athletes
from Addis Ababa (the capital). You don't see so much athletes from the
city, most of our athletes they come from the countryside."
With his ambassadorial
work, Gebrselassie is doing his best to make sure the conveyor belt of
champions continues for a while yet.
Role model
"It's important to inspire people. Without a role model it's not an easy job," he says.
"I'm teaching everybody
how they become successful. One is to be disciplined. Second, commitment
or a goal, and third is hard work."
He has one key message to his youngsters and the wider public: "Win for yourself."
"What is that? Sometimes
you know people promise to stop smoking, to stop drinking, to stop
taking drugs. But they, after one day or after two days, they cannot,
which means they've lost for themselves.
"I ask people win
themselves first, which means you can win anything that you dream, that
you plan, what you want. This really is my tip for everyone."
Allied to his incredible
talent and will to win, Gebrselassie has certainly "won for himself" in
bundles down the years -- dominating distance running and becoming one
of the most recognizable sportsman on the planet.
Judging by his recent
performances -- winner of April's Vienna half-marathon, third in a
world-class Manchester 10 km last month and smashing the best for a
40-year-old at the distance -- Gebrselassie will be delighting his fans
for a few more years to come as he sticks to his endearing philosophy
for life.
http://edition.cnn.com/
http://edition.cnn.com/
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