yo wrote:
it was for sure in the 1992 world championships , when gebresalasie got punched in the head from behind by the kenyan Josephat Machuka. Geb sat and unleased an amazing last 200m and Machuka couldnt respond and right at the finish nailed him in the head. The funny part is when geb goes to shake his hand a couple minutes later. I have it on tape still.
Unfortunately, you are confusing two seperate events. At the 1993 World Championships (1992 was an Olympic year), Geb was leaching off of Moses Tanui for virtually the entire race. With one lap to go, Haile accidently steps on Tanui's foot, causing Tanui to go apeshit. He kicked off his own shoe, starting hitting himself in the head, and goes into a full, dead on sprint with about 390 meters to go. Haile slowly caught up to him with about 100 meters left in the race and barely beat him. Tanui was pissed. Haile went to shake his hand and Tanui starts pointing at him with his shoe (which he has now retreived from the track) and refuses to shake Haile's hand. The Canadian Broadcast company interviewer (don't recall his name) went to interview Tanui, and Tanui just starts going crazy in broken english about how "my kick is too fast, he had to cheat to win, etc. etc." When the interviewer points out to Tanui that he may have actually won had he not started absolutely sprinting with 400 meters to go, Tanui just lost it. It wasn't a fight, but it was probably the funniest damn thing I have seen an elite distance runner do and say in an interview.
Prof. Rob M.