Thank you Haile: The Great One Haile Gebrselassie Has Officially Retired

Thanks for the summary and perspective.

Laying the Smackdown,

Greatest post I have ever had the pleasure of reading on these boards!!

A friend of mine ran the race and went sub-30, so he beat Geb. Imagine the feeling. Immediately after he had finished Geb went back to the starting line and ran the entire course again with the masses!

The Greatest Ever! As others have mentioned the 96 Oly Final in Atlanta was one of the best races I've ever seen. Geb and Tergat ran the second 5000 in about 13:12 (my recollection is the open 5000 was won in about 13:08). Truly an incredible race.

I think it was Zurich in 95 when Geb just blew the 5000 WR out of the water for the first time. A small portion of it was shown on ESPN at the time. The 5000 was never the same after that.

My most memorable Geb moment though was him passing Komen in the 97 Zurich 5000 when he left Komen in the dust with about 250 meters to go en route to the WR.

Well, what a fantastic career. I wish him the best. I must say that I am sorry to see him retire without taking a shot at the master's WR for the marathon - which is certainly within his reach. To me, that would be a better way to go out of the marathon than the DNF he had at Fukuoka in 2012.

Except for not winning a World Cross Country crown (though he did medal in it: silver as a junior runner and bronze as a senior), Geb got every honor there is to win in the sport. He set many NR's, outdoor WR's, indoor WR's, road WR's, master's WR's, and won Olympic titles, World Champs titles, Indoor World Titles, and a World Road Racing Title. And what a range of times: 3:31.76 for the 1,500 up to 2:03:59 for the marathon.

With respect to the range of winning world titles, Bekele has done the same thing of winning four different crowns, with the difference that Bekele won many World Cross crowns but has yet to win a World Road title.

No one else has won the range of titles that these two have.

Haile is really the only runner who's greatness comes through even to non-runners. Charisma, class, humility.

For more than 20 years we've had him wowing us all. Thank you Haile!

I saw Haile lose his first 10,000m championship race (Edmonton 2001, first race after Achilles surgery). He lost to Charles Kamathi of Kenya, who was interviewed on the jumbo-tron shortly after the race. Paraphrasing the Interview:

"So you just won the world championship gold, how does it feel to be the best in the world?"

Kamathi: "Well first I'd like to thank God, and second I'd like to thank Haile Gebrselassie. I may have won today, but Haile is still the greatest"

Only God got higher billing in Kamathi's thank you speech!....It struck me that I'd never seen such deference to an opponent before, especially from an athlete from a rival nation.

SawHimOnce wrote:

I saw Haile lose his first 10,000m championship race (Edmonton 2001, first race after Achilles surgery). He lost to Charles Kamathi of Kenya, who was interviewed on the jumbo-tron shortly after the race. Paraphrasing the Interview:

"So you just won the world championship gold, how does it feel to be the best in the world?"

Kamathi: "Well first I'd like to thank God, and second I'd like to thank Haile Gebrselassie. I may have won today, but Haile is still the greatest"

Only God got higher billing in Kamathi's thank you speech!....It struck me that I'd never seen such deference to an opponent before, especially from an athlete from a rival nation.

this is gold.

"A day without training is like a day without eating."

Haile was the first runner I heard of and cheered for. I still get chills watching Haile and Tergat in 2000. Hail to Haile Gebrselassie, the Emperor.

Excellently put, laying the smackdown.

Haile not just dominated running, he rewrote the record books. Who remembers him taking almost 11s off the 5000m record in '95? The first guy under 59mins for the half? I don't have nearly enough time to talk about the 10000m....

In the twilight of his career, over 12 short months he took almost a minute off the marathon world record. Even in this era of unbelievable marathon talent, records dropping everywhere, only four athletes have (legally) run faster (and darn was that next minute was hard fought for!)

Will an athlete ever again display such range? '99 1500m/3000m double at world indoors followed by 10000m at world outdoors only months later. 2nd fastest all-time 1500m-10000m. Top 5 in the marathon. Without getting into a GOAT argument, this is something that makes him unique.

Finally, he was the reason I started running. I would have never discovered this amazing sport if it wasn't for you Haile, thank you so much! You are truly a legend of sport.

12:44.39 (1995) still blows my mind and it's still 6th all time. I mean, who knew that Kiptanui and Haile were just f'ing around with their 12:56's and 12:55's? Really, the 5000 was so "soft" that you could take nearly 11 whole seconds out of it in one jump?!!!

And, for good measure, just to show everyone how great he really was, he shows Tergat how to properly break a WR. Sure, Paul showed how awesome he was, breaking Geb's 10,000 WR by 3.5 seconds, but Geb came back and took over 5 more seconds off it the next year! (and that one remains #3 all time.)

Greatest runner, greatest range of all time.

Really soo sad news that he retires! He is my favorite runner, and an inspiration to many people! The greatest runner of all time!

3:31i - 4:52i - 7:25 - 8:01 - 12:39 - 26:22 - 58:55 - 2:03:59

The 2:03:59 he predicted coming exactly as that!!

Haile Gebrselassie has a very strong claim to be called "greatest athlete (sportsman) in history". For sure there will never be a clear answer to this question, but Gebrselassie has to be in any discussion to the subject. And I probably would put him at the top most times I think about it.

Who else?

Pele? Eddy Merckx? Michael Phelps? Wayne Gretzky? Carl Lewis? Alexander Karelin? Michael Jordan? Jackie Joyner-Kersee? Steffi Graf? Roger Federer?

These and also some others for sure also have good arguments on there side, but are they really close to Gebrselassie? More than two decades at (or very close) to the top of world distance running. Still 2nd fastest over 1500m(i) and 5th fastest in the Marathon. Nearly (because of the greatest talent distance running probably has seen so far: D.K.) unbeatable on the track for six seasons. 26 world records. Titles from 1500m to Half-Marathon. And so on.

And what a personality Haile has!