Haile Gebrselassie: The Greatest Ever

Edward Ovadia

Email: edwardovadia [at] gmail.com

Haile Gebrselassie is the greatest ever distance runner the world has ever seen. Sunday's 10000m final confirmed that for me. Forget that Kenenisa Bekele broke the Olympic record, and clocked a 53 second final lap to win in just over 27 minutes. Haile was the star of the night, and his sixth place was the highlight.

Geb has had an outstanding career, and is the most versatile athlete around. He has to his name a 3:31 over 1500m indoors, all the way through to a 2:04:26 marathon. He has held world records from 3000m to the marathon, and has broken an innumerable number of them - 25 at last count. He out-kicked Paul Tergat to win the Olympic 10000 metres once in Atlanta in 1996, and then again in Sydney in 2000.

However after his fifth placing in Athens in 2004 (behind Bekele) - the result of an injury in the final weeks before the Games - many people thought Haile's days on the track were done. And he seemed to agree, instead going about breaking the word record in the marathon and half marathon. So his return to the track for the Beijing Games, a decision made on the back of his asthma and Beijing's pollution, brought up a lot of scepticism about whether Geb could handle the speed and intensity of track running after all these years. Last Sunday, he showed he could.

Haile led the field for part of the race, and was never far from the front. In one decisive moment, Zersenay Tadese put in a surge at the front, and only Geb responded immediately, shadowing Tadese. It was an instant when Bekele looked vulnerable, and it may have stayed that way had Geb not kindly instructed Bekele to hurry up to the front - such is the team mentality of the Ethiopians. But as the camera focused tightly on Tadese struggling in the lead, and Haile in control right behind him - the two in their own brief lead pack - in that instant I felt a surge of joy at the proof that Geb was back. The Emperor could still hold his own with the younger speedsters of the track; and memories of Sydney and Atlanta came flooding back. Right until the last lap, it was very possible that Haile could snare the win. But of course this was not to be, because at 35, trying to out-kick one of the best finishers in the world - 26 year old Bekele - is a tough if not impossible ask. At nine years older than Bekele, head to head races are an unfair marker. And so Geb faded to sixth, while still managing a 58 second final lap. But his competitiveness on the track has remained; and his performance, given his age, was worthy of its own gold medal.

There's no doubt that Haile will continue to do great things in the marathon. Just as it is unlikely that he will break another record on the track. But he had done enough to guarantee himself the title of 'The Greatest Ever', and in Beijing he demonstrated his consistency over the years which has made him such a force in distance running in the last 15 years. For his legions of fans, we didn't need Geb to win gold in Beijing as an excuse to celebrate - having the chance to watch Haile and his classic running style once more on the track, seeing him be competitive and taking it to the other runners - that is reason enough.

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