Going for the gold

The first thing I noticed as I shook the hand of Haile Gebrselassie the other night was that he was no taller than me, and I am only of average height by Filipino standards.

So how could this Ethiopian have won two Olympic gold medals in long distance running, and hold the world record in marathon? Don’t you need longer legs for that?

And don’t you need a stronger body, and proper nutrition? When my friends and I despair over the situation in the Philippines, we console ourselves with the thought that we could have been born in war-torn Somalia, or famine-hit Ethiopia.

Gebrselassie has a slim body that looks like the trunk of a hardwood tree. It’s a lean body, with every muscle and nerve under the athlete’s control.

His Spartan sustenance from childhood – mostly “maize and more maize,” occasional meat and dairy straight from a modest farm – might have actually contributed to his athletic prowess.

When Ethiopia suffered from acute drought and famine, his family was spared, Gebrselassie told me, because they lived in a farm in the highland village of Asela, 175 kilometers from the capital Addis Ababa, where fresh water, though scarce, did not disappear completely. His father raised a few heads of cattle and sheep and grew wheat plus the staple, corn.

But as a young boy, Gebrselassie had to fetch water about five kilometers every day for their household. He lived in a traditional Ethiopian mud hut, with only blankets separating the rooms of his parents from those of his four sisters and the one he shared with his five brothers.

All work at the farm was manual; the young Haile would experience electricity and running water only when he was 15, when he visited his brother in Addis Ababa.

At seven, Gebrselassie lost his mother to cancer. She had encouraged him to expand his horizons through education, and he did, finishing high school before running became his all-consuming passion.

His father wanted him to help with the farm, but it was backbreaking work. At the end of a 12-hour working day, the young Haile would dream of becoming many things other than a farm hand: a pilot, or – why not reach for the stars? – a runner who brings pride to Ethiopia by winning an Olympic gold.

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Gebrselassie is now as idolized in his country as boxing superstar Manny Pacquiao is in the Philippines.

By 2004, he had won two Olympic golds plus four other world titles in the 10,000-meter race, and he has set 17 indoor and outdoor world records.

An avenue in Addis Ababa has been named after Gebrselassie. He owns a real estate and construction company, which operates a commercial mall employing 500, and another modern building in the capital. He drives around in a Mercedes Benz – one of his earliest prizes when he won the 10,000-meter world championship race in Stuttgart in 1993. He is happily married to his childhood sweetheart, with whom he has a daughter and three sons. Having achieved such success in one of the poorest countries in the world, he wonders how he can make Ethiopia a better place, and he has not ruled out the possibility of running for president.

His success, plus those of his compatriots who have won for their country a total of 19 Olympic gold medals, five silvers and 14 bronzes, ensure that running for national honor will remain an obsession for many young Ethiopians.

Gebrselassie had not yet been born when Abebe Bikila, a 28-year-old bodyguard of Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, ran barefoot at the Rome Olympics marathon in 1960, stunning the world with the first gold medal for Ethiopia and for all of Africa.

At seven, the seeds of an Olympic ambition were planted in Haile Gebrselassie’s mind. He defied his father’s order and ran off with the family radio, to listen to the broadcast of Ethiopian runner Miruts Yifter’s victories in the 5,000- and 10,000-meter races in the 1980 Moscow Games.

Some African runners race against apes. Gebrselassie raced against donkeys, and ran at every opportunity: to school and back, to do farm work. In grade school a physical education teacher taught Gebrselassie to race not against fellow runners but against a target record time.

He trained despite the famine in many parts of his country. This was aggravated by deadly armed conflict as Haile Selassie, once revered as a direct descendant of God, was overthrown and the Soviet-backed communist regime took over, leaving dead bodies littering the streets even in Ethiopian villages every day.

Gebrselassie discovered that he could get an additional burst of oxygen – and energy – in the lowlands if he trained constantly at high altitudes, where the thin air forced the body to produce more red blood cells.

Running became his life. “Once you start running, you cannot stop. It’s a kind of drug,” he told a gathering the other night at the Forbes Park residence of British Ambassador Stephen Lillie. “Every day is training day.”

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Gebrselassie was in Manila as the sports ambassador of British security solutions company G4S. The company, the world’s second largest employer, announced at the gathering hosted by Lillie that Filipino boxer Charly Suarez had been chosen to be one of 14 athletes from 13 countries who would get corporate support to develop the kind of athletic prowess that could win a medal at the 2012 Olympics in London.

On stage at the gathering, Gebrselassie advised Suarez, plus some of the 14 athletes who were also flown to Manila by G4S: “In all sports, the goal is the same. Be an Olympic champion. Be world champion.”

The secrets to success, he said, are “discipline, hard work.” Also, “every sport needs a moral.”

Later, I asked him what sort of support he received from the Ethiopian government for his Olympic success. As a teenager, he was made a member of the police team in Addis Ababa and was given a monthly pay of $15, but the young lieutenant’s only job was to train as a runner. His only treat: Fanta orange, about once or twice a month.

“If you’re not good enough for sports, it doesn’t matter how much the government can give you,” he told me. “(The most important element) is the athlete.”

Wherever he is around the world, he sees to it that he runs at least 35 kilometers a day, half of the distance in the morning and the other half late in the afternoon.

Yesterday he started his day with a three-kilometer run around the Manila Polo Club at 6:30 a.m.

At 33, he is just two years shy of the age when Miruts Yifter bagged his first Olympic gold.

I asked Gebrselassie about his plans for retirement. His quick reply: “I’ll keep running.”