Posted: February 3, 2004

Athletics: Haile Gebrselassie has Boston on its Feet

By David Monti

(c) 2004 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved < RaceResultsWeekly.com>

BOSTON (31-Jan) -- The most recognizable face in distance running for the last decade came back to Boston 12 years after he first competed here in the IAAf World Cross Country Championships as an unknown teenager. Much has changed since he earned that silver medal in the junior race.

"When I came in 1992 no one knows Haile Gebrselassie," said the two-time Olympic gold medalist. "Now, many people know who is he."

"He" is the little man with the huge lungs and heart who has set 17 world records. As he stood on the track here this evening, the last to be introduced for the 3000m, the capacity crowd at the Reggie Lewis Track & Field Center was whooping and applauding even before his name was uttered. Hundreds of Ethiopians from the Boston area gave him a reception as enthusiastic as if it had been in Addis Ababa.

Gebrselassie's task today would be a tough one: take back his indoor 3000m record from the retired Kenyan, Daniel Komen. The mark, 7:24.90, meant the Ethiopian would have to average 29.66 seconds per lap, or 2:28.30 per kilometer. By way of comparison, the 1000m race held earlier this evening went at 2:20.51, less than eight seconds slower.

Gebrselassie had pacing assistance from American Sean O'Brien and Kenyan David Lelei, but they would only prove to be of minimal help. The first kilometer went down in 2:27:56, with O'Brien, Lelei, Markos Geneti of Ethiopia and Gebrselassie running single file. But after only 1600m, Gebrselassie was already in the lead. The pacers had given out.

"I expected they would run the first two kilometers, but they stopped before," Gebrselassie would say later. "I was good until the last seven laps."

Gebrselassie pushed alone through 2-K in 5:00.95, very close to where Komen was in Budapest in 1998: 5:00.0. But then those huge lungs began to have trouble with the dry New England winter air circulating in the Reggie Lewis Center.

"When I run inside, you know it is a little bit dry here," said Gebrselassie between heavy coughs after the race. "I felt something dry; I could not breathe easily. I do not understand why."

He took the bell at 7:04.56, but could only manage 30.7 seconds for the last lap, finishing in 7:35.27, the tenth-fastest time of his indoor career.

But the crowd was hardly disappointed, and neither was Gebrselassie.

"What can I do?" he asked rhetorically, flashing his world-famous grin. "I have to accept."

Behind Gebrselassie's U.S. all-comer record was a slew of personal bests, a national record and even an area record. Canadian Kevin Sullivan's 7:44.46 was a national record and New Zealander Nick Willis's 7:44.90 was an Oceana area record. Bernard Lagat (7:44.58), Daniel Lincoln (7:45.20), Matt Lane (7:45.72), Jason Lunn (7:47.20) and Luke Watson (7:49.56) all set personal bests.

Gebrselassie will run three times more indoors this year, looking for gold at the IAAF World Indoor Championships in Budapest in March. He's also looking forward to the Olympic Games, hoping to repeat the Ethiopian sweep of the men's 10,000m at last summer's world championships, perhaps displacing world 10,000m champion, Kenenisa Bekele, from the top step. Indeed, the younger Bekele ran 7:30.77 today in Stuttgart.

"I hope I'll be one of the competitors," said Gebrselassie slyly of his Olympic chances.

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