Posted: August 18, 2004

Athletics: Despite Pain, Gebrselassie Will Defend 10-K Title

From David Monti

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

ATHENS (18-Aug) -- Haile Gebrselassie told a packed news conference at an Athens tennis club that, despite the painful injury to his Achilles tendon, he will contest Friday night's Olympic 10,000m final.

"I'm going to compete on Friday," said the two-time Olympic 10,000m gold medalist. "For sure, I'm going to run."

He continued: "My problem is Achilles, now the left one. Now that the right one is fine, the left one (is a problem)."

Gebrselassie's rematch with his younger compatriot Kenenisa Bekele is one of the most anticipated contests at these Olympics, at least in the athletics venue. Last summer in Paris, Bekele beat Gebrselassie, and since then Bekele has broken Gebrselassie's 5000m and 10,000m world records. The two rivals are nonetheless close.

"We are very close to each other," he said. "He's doing very well, he's breaking all of my records."

Gebrselassie admitted that the Achilles injury had cut into the quality of his training, and that the race could be quite paiful.

"I don't know how it will be," he explained.

Along with Sileshi Sihine, the Ethiopians had been looking to sweep the podium as they did in Paris last summer. Gebrselassie agreed that that was still the goal.

"The best is to take all three medals," he quipped.