Lenny Woldringh interviews running great Haile Gebrselassie for the Dutch TV show Praatjesmakerss (Loose translation: Talkmakers). This video is evidence that he is not only the world’s greatest distance runner (26 records broken), but an extremely lovely and gracious man. As a kid gowing up on a farm in Ethiopia he used to run 10K to school and 10K home everyday and now he runs with a crooked arm as though he’s still carrying those schoolbooks. “In the rainy season, sometimes to get to the first lesson we had to run really quick, because we had to cross the river to school and we’d have to go up and down the bank to find a place to cross because there is no bridge”.
Lenny interviews him just before the 2009 Berlin Marathon – the very race in which one year earlier he shattered his marathon record and became the first –and so far only– man ever to run sub 2.04 (2.03.59, to be precise). The man is older than me. I’m such a slacker. In 2009 he attempted to break his own record and was on pace to do so until 30K, when a ”dramatic” slowing meant a 2.06.08 finish (for a cool analysis of what happened to the pace check out The Science of Sport). Before the race he seems calm and cool, even in the face of a barrage of confusing questions, poems, and jokes by a very adult boy.
Maybe there is magic in Lenny’s ear (I wonder what Earbud said to Haile). There sure is magic in Haile: “You know, I want to help my country. Definitely I can help them, simply by winning races. Sure, they can follow my path to a good career. But for me it is not enough. I want to be more than that. In everything I want to be a role model.”
p.s. Who can translate that poem? I’m so very curious.
