{"id":2372,"date":"2014-12-12T04:19:41","date_gmt":"2014-12-12T10:19:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/marathon\/?p=2372"},"modified":"2014-12-12T04:19:41","modified_gmt":"2014-12-12T10:19:41","slug":"haile-gebrselassie-one-more-marathon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/marathon\/news\/haile-gebrselassie-one-more-marathon\/","title":{"rendered":"Haile Gebrselassie one more marathon"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Haile<\/a><\/p>\n

If Haile Gebrselassie was peeved at being upstaged by a couple of in-form Kenyans in the Marathon Singapore 10k last Sunday, he soon retrieved his equanimity, and was mulling over at least, \u201cone more marathon,\u201d before retiring to the celebrity circuit, and a leap into national politics.<\/p>\n

Haile Gebrselassie one more marathon<\/h3>\n

He admits to 41, though many, even in Ethiopia believe he may be up to three or four years older; which makes his achievements even more extraordinary. He has already enjoyed the longest international career \u2013 23 years so far – at the top of the most punishing of pursuits, long distance running.<\/p>\n

And there was a nice coincidence in meeting up in Singapore with Steve Moneghetti. The Aussie marathon ace was working on the TV production of Marathon Singapore; but he was the man who deprived Geb and his colleagues of victory in Geb\u2019s first ever international trip, to an Ekiden (relay) in Japan, in 1991. \u201cWe lost that race, because of him,\u201d related Geb. \u201cWe were leading by far, from the Australians, and the last leg was 12k. Steve Moneghetti came from far behind, and he caught our guy just in the stadium at the end; and we lost\u201d.<\/p>\n

Gebrselassie returned to Asia to following year, to win a double, 5000\/10,000 metres, at the World Junior Championships, in Seoul, S Korea. And a legend was born. Two Olympic golds, eight world titles, indoors and out, and close to 30 world records, including the first sub-2.04 marathon, later, and the legend continues.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m thinking to run another marathon, just to check myself,\u201d he said, before leaving Singapore. \u201cFor the time being, I\u2019m fine. I\u2019ve been enjoying a rest, doing some business. I\u2019m not training so much, not so hard. Of course, I train every day, mostly twice, unless I\u2019m really busy, and I skip the second one. I don\u2019t know where (marathon) at the moment, but something at the end of May, or Berlin (late September), just for myself. The problem is everybody expects me to be in front, so it\u2019s not easy. They know Haile Gebrselassie is a front runner, and if they don\u2019t see you at the front\u2026..?<\/p>\n

\u201cBut first I have to prepare. In this condition (now), it\u2019s impossible to run a marathon. I\u2019m training one hour, 30 minutes maximum, because of my business schedule. I have to be in the office by eight, until 5.30-6pm. But the good thing, the gym is in the basement, so if I only have a few minutes between six and seven, I just do a gym session\u201d.<\/p>\n

Business, by the way, includes 1500 employees, a car dealership, a cinema circuit, a hotel complex, a coffee plantation, and a recent foray into gold mining. And as if that wasn\u2019t enough for a man who also counts 90mins training each day as taking it easy, he now seems after much prevarication to be taking the idea of going into national politics increasingly seriously.<\/p>\n

He first raised the idea close to a decade ago, but then had second thoughts. \u201cYou know, as a successful sportsman, everybody loves you,\u201d he told me at least five years ago, \u201cbut the moment you go into politics, immediately 50% of people hate you\u201d. He seems to have got over that obstacle. \u201cDefinitely, yes; the question is when. I\u2019m doing a lot at the moment, trying to do my business in a proper way. But I want to do it, it\u2019s not just a political ambition for myself; I want to do something for my country. When you become a politician, it\u2019s not just black and white; there\u2019s a big difference between sport and politics. The question is, what would my position be? Firstly, I want to be a parliamentarian; then we\u2019ll see\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If Haile Gebrselassie was peeved at being upstaged by a couple of in-form Kenyans in the Marathon Singapore 10k last Sunday, he soon retrieved his equanimity, and was mulling over at least, \u201cone more marathon,\u201d before retiring to the celebrity circuit, and a leap into national politics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":516,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,15,18,1],"tags":[430],"class_list":["post-2372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","category-ethiopia","category-featured","category-news","tag-haile-gebrselassie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/marathon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/marathon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/marathon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/marathon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/marathon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/marathon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/marathon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/marathon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/marathon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/marathon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}