Ethiopian long distance running legend Haile Gebrselassie has announced his final decision to retire from competitive running.
The 42-year-old had told the BBC he was retiring after completing his final competitive outing in 16th position at the Morrisons Great Manchester Run on Sunday.
“I’m very happy to stop here. I knew this was going to be the last one,” he said to BBC Sport.
“I’m retiring from competitive running, not from running…You cannot stop running, this is my life.”
Gebrselassie, who set an incredible 27 world records during a glittering career which also saw him claim two Olympic gold medals, set 61 national records and was the world 10,000m champion four times, said he will continue to run for fun as “running gives you everything you wish”.
In 2010, Gebrselassie shocked the athletics world by announcing his retirement from the sport after the ING New York Marathon, but the Ethiopian legend later changed his mind and returned to competitive running.
He won his fifth title at the [link id=”77″ tax=”post_tag” text=”Greater Manchester Run 10km” target=”_blank” target=”_blank”] in 2012 clocking a world leading 27 minutes 39 seconds at the time.
[link id=”76″ tax=”post_tag” text=”Haile Gebrselassie” target=”_blank” target=”_blank”] will now focus more on his businesses in [link id=”82″ tax=”category” text=”Ethiopia” target=”_blank” target=”_blank”] where he is involved in real estate projects, owns four hotels, a coffee plantation and is an automobile distributor.
Here’s a 2010 interview we had with Haile Gebrselassie where he told us he had no plan to retire from the sport yet.
Meet The Authors
Yomog Meje is a former Nigerian junior athlete and the Associate editor at Athletics Africa.
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