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Haile Gebrselassie aims to lower marathon world record

Posted on , Updated on by Elias Kifle

BERLIN (AFP) — Ethiopia’s Haile Gebrselassie said Thursday he is convinced he can lower his own world record at this year’s Berlin marathon, on September 28.

The 35-year-old set the current marathon world record of two hours 4min 26sec on September 30 in Berlin last year, the 25th world record of his career, and he wants to go even faster over the flat 42.195km-long course.

“I am convinced I can break the record again if the weather conditions are right,” he said.

As a four times world champion and two-time Olympic champion over 10,000m, Gebrselassie is currently training at altitude near the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.

Gebrselassie finished fifth in the 10,000m at the Beijing Olympic Games behind compatriot and gold medal winner Kenenisa Bekele.

8 thoughts on “Haile Gebrselassie aims to lower marathon world record”

  1. I think the king of long distance seems to be confused. He should have stayed away from 10000m and run in the marathon race in Beijing. He could have challenged the Kenyan may be even beat him. The fact that he telling us about bringing down the marathon record is nothing more than “Gib Kehede Wusha Chohe”

  2. Bunamaw, the first person to comment:
    You’re a confused soul. Please re-read what Haile is quoted to have said. There is no reference either to Olympic record or Beijing Marathon. You seem to be jumping the gun because you missunderstand what is written. For your information, a similar interview appears in Harambie Newspaper published in the Amharic Language in Ethiopia. That might help clear some of the confusion.

  3. Yes!! That is the problem with some people ,like the one calling himself Bunamaw – what a name!! Such people do not have the head to read and clearly understand. They just run their eyes over something written and rush to commenting.

    In fact, it is the culture among people who hate Ethiopia to blackmail her HEROES- our PRIDE.

    Bunamaw, Mr Bunny, learn to read before trying to write anything and above all against heroes such as the ALL TIME GREAT HAILE GEBRESELASSIE.

    Yilkis turinafawun titeh Sing With Teddy, “Haile Haile Gebre Selassie Haile Haile….”

    I love this song!! Don’t you, my river boys and girls?

  4. Semere,
    You are the confused one. Bunamaw was merely pointing out the fact that it would have been more prestigious for Haile to go for an olympic gold medal than waste energy in trying to break …his own record!

  6. These days, for Haile, money and sport are just hands and gloves, they are inseparable. Haile has simply become one greedy man who has lost the value and objective of GOOD SPORT. Where there is no money no Haile, as simple as that. All expected Haile to prove his crtics wrong in Beijing. As much as I admired him in his early days, I am now one of his critics. He has to leave the track to young new comers before he becomes bad inflence, if he is not already. How old is he? 35? I thought he is in his early/mid fourties, which I am sure is.

  7. Senzero, how old are you? I bet you are younger than Haile and can’t still run 10 meters. You have given up on your body. Ponder what I just said about you. But don’t try to figure how I knew – I just read your post between the lines.

  8. I just cannot hide my frustration with Haile. He has hugely disappointed me when he decided to forgone the Marathon for the 10,000m in Beijing. We already had the 10,000m medals bagged with Kenennisa before the race even started. I could not understand how on earth Haile runs 10,000m in Beijing while he knows that we already have great runners in the distance and that he had no chance to reach the podium. His result speaks volume. He said he regretted his decision later but I think he should not decided mush earlier not to run. As we have seen, the weather was good and the air quality was much better. I do not know any other athlet that compalined about the air quality. He made a bad judgemnet and, given that he decided not to run the Marathon, he should not have been included in the team. Someone else, young one, could go and benefit from the experience. Haile’s inclusion in the team, even when his manager was saying he had no chance of winning a medal in the 10,000m, is rather a bad judgement on the part of the Ethiopian Olympic team.

    Anyway, good luck for him to further lower his record. I applaud him for that. I guess he has an extra motivation to do that, which is obvious!

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