The Greatest: The Haile Gebrselassie Story

Distance running has changed beyond recognition over the last thirty years.  British, American, Finnish, New Zealand and Australian stars have been usurped by new kings of distance from East and North Africa.

Authors and publishers seem to have missed this as there are very few books about African runners.  Reading about running means living in the past, reliving the four minute mile, Ovett and Coe.

So The Greatest:  The Haile Gebrselassie Story, is a welcome change.  Jim Dennison spent two years on the road with Gebrselassie and describes his childhood in Ethiopia, his development as a runner and his personal and business life. 

Gebrselassie’s childhood inspiration came from Miruts Yifter, whose 1980 Olympic triumph he surreptitiously listened to on the family radio, whose batteries were normally saved for news programmes.  His schoolboy talent led to him being recruited to run for the police force, before his international emergence at the 1992 World Junior Championships.  

Nearly a decade of dominance on the track followed, with seventeen world records, eight world championship victories and Olympic golds in 1996 and 2000.  Dennison reveals how close Gebrselassie came to disaster in both of these Olympic campaigns.  In Atlanta he was left unable to walk a week before the final by an infected blister. An achilles injury in his build up to Sydney meant he could hardly run in the last month before the race.

My favourite bits of the book are the descriptions of his duel in Sydney with Paul Tergat.  It was a confrontation between the two dominant distance runners of the 90s.  Dennison contrasts their preparation: Tergat in a frenzy, training three times a day, finishing workouts semi-conscious; Gebrselassie hobbled by his injury, filled with doubt and debating withdrawal.  Gebrselassie’s will to win never more obvious than in the final 100m as he clawed back Tergat’s lead.

Sydney marked the end of Haile’s period of track dominance as he was beaten in Edmonton 2001 by Charles Kamathi, after suffering a stomach virus shortly before the final.  Shortly after this came Kenenisa Bekele and the beginning of the end of his reign as the greatest ever on the track. 

Bekele beat Gebrselassie in his debut 10,000m and has been undefeated since, following Gebrselassie in combining stinging final speed with iron will.  Haile has been generous towards his new rival but, by turning his attention to the roads, he is making it more and more difficult for Bekele to surpass him completely.

The book concludes with the Athens Olympics and so only includes the beginning of his marathon career. Is it unfair to feel disappointed by his marathon career?  It’s a measure of the man that the fastest ever debut and two world records could be disappointing.  But he has never been convincing against a competitive field and recently has seemed less keen to face them. 

Olympic champion Sammy Wanjiru has shaken up marathon running the way that Gebrselassie shook up track running in the early 90s.  If Haile could beat him, Bekele’s mission to overtake him as the greatest of all time would look almost impossible.

Who knows when Gebrselassie will stop?  Maybe Jim Dennison will update his book when he does.  In the meantime, it’s a good chance to read about the rise of one of the sport’s biggest stars.