(22/04/2005)

Ethiopian distance running legend Haile Gebrselassie has been conferred with an honorary doctorate by the National University of Ireland.

The double Olympic Gold medalist and four-times world champion in the 10,000 metres was awarded a Doctor of Laws (DLL) in recognition of his sporting achievement, his charitable and development work in Africa, at a ceremony in Dublin.

Gebrselassie joined some of Ireland’s champions of the future at the official opening of the new €3m sporting facilities at the University College Dublin (UCD).

Dr Padraic Conway of UCD who presented the award said: "Mr Gebrselassie is widely – and correctly - regarded as one of the greatest distance runners of all time, the most recent and most successful standard bearer of an outstanding Ethiopian Olympic tradition which stretches back to the achievements of Abebe Bikila and Mamo Wolde in the 1960s.

"We honour him today, however, not only for his sporting prowess but for the work which, increasingly in latter years, he has done for development in Ethiopia, with a particular focus on education."

Gebrselassie, 32, who has been working with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) since 1998, thanked UCD for the award and said he was honoured to receive the degree, as education had always been one of his priorities in his work on development.

"Without education, we will never eradicate poverty in Ethiopia, said Haile.

"It is a great honour for me to receive this degree in Ireland and it will be a constant reminder of the work that remains to be done at home in terms of education.

"One of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals calls for all children to be in primary education by the year 2015. We have to work to make sure that goal is achieved," he added.