| Gebrselassie
breaks half marathon record
January 16 2006 at 10:21AM
Tempe - Haile Gebrselassie shattered the world
half marathon record by 21 seconds on Sunday while running the
last half of the Rock 'n Roll Arizona Marathon.
He also broke the 20km world mark en route. It marked the 19th
and 20th times the diminutive Ethiopian has broken world records
in his career.
"This one is so fantastic because this is my first one in
America," he said. "It's a little special to me. It's
really, really wonderful."
His half marathon time of 58 minutes, 55 seconds on a clear,
crisp morning through the streets of Phoenix, Scottsdale and Tempe
broke the mark of 59:16 set by 18-year-old Samuel Wanjiru of Kenya
in Rotterdam, Netherlands, on September 11, 2005.
'We didn't expect the first part of the race to be fast'
His 20km time, also officially clocked, was 55:48. That broke
the world record held by his longtime rival, Paul Tergat of Kenya,
of 56:18 set in the Stramilano, Italy, half marathon on April
4, 1998.
While nearly 34 000 took part in the marathon and related running
events on Sunday, only Gebrselassie and four pacesetters took
off from the midpoint of the marathon course. Initially, he was
slower than Wanjiru's world-record pace, but that changed when
the 32-year-old four-time world champion and two-time Olympic
gold medalist took off on his own about 10km into his race.
That was by design, he said.
"That was our plan. We didn't expect the first part of the
race to be fast," Gebrselassie said. "Our plan was for
the second part. My plan was to run under 59 minutes and that
is what we did."
With rock bands playing each mile along the way, Gebrselassie
showed no signs of laboring, looking as if he was on a simple
morning run. He averaged just over 2 and 3/4 minutes per kilometre
over the 21.1km.
Gebrselassie won the Olympic gold medal at 10,000 meters in 1996
and 2000 but has not run on the track since his fifth-place finish
at the 2004 Athens Games. Instead, he switched to the roads, where
he hopes to add a gold medal in the marathon at the 2008 Olympics
in Beijing.
In October, he aimed for Tergat's world marathon record of 2:04:55
at the Rotterdam Marathon but came up short at 2:06.20.
He has been training at 3 000m near his home in Ethiopia.
Sunday's time sends a message to Gebrselassie's foes that he
is in top shape for the April 23 London Marathon, where Tergat
will be among the competitors.
"You can see from today's record," he said when asked
about his condition for London. "I hope I will do very good
in the London Marathon."
There will be no "rabbits" setting the pace in that
one, so Gebrselassie downplayed the opportunity for a world record
there.
"London is going to be something different because everybody
wants to run to win," he said. "I'm okay if I win. If
I do not break the world record but win in London, it is something
special. But we'll see. Anything is possible."
Cheering fans waved Ethiopian flags as he neared the finish line
on the Arizona State University campus. When he crossed the finish
line, a few fans and friends surrounded him, chanting "Haile!
Ethiopia!" He blew kisses to the crowd.
"Everywhere in the world, there are Ethiopians," he
said
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