A biography for Haile Gebrselassiehasn’t been written yet.
“What is important is to win.”
“First, do enough training. Then believe in yourself and say: I can do it. Tomorrow is my day. And then say: the person in front of me, he is just a human being as well; he has two legs, I have two legs, that is all. That is mentally how you prepare.”
“I can't change everything by myself but I can be one of the people who are trying to change the situation.”
“You lose the speed before the stamina.”
“I'm a runner first before anything else.”
“My school was six miles away from where I lived on the farm. I had to walk and run, there and back every day, through gorges and over rivers. If I was late, there was a very big stick waiting for me.”
“Athletics is in my blood.”
“When I run in Ethiopia, I look out and see eucalyptus trees and rivers.”
“If you are a really good marathoner, you have to run New York.”
“My father thought sport was something fun - he didn't know it was a way to make money. Then I won a Mercedes at the world championships and I gave it to him. From the moment it arrived my father said: 'Good, you can support not just yourself but me too'.”
“I think if you come first with a new world record, that is the best.”
“The more you are getting older, you lose a little something. Of course there is another advantage, because of your long experience you can use it.”
“I want to go down in history.”
“What can you do if a part of it is uphill? You can't work out another route. You've just got to run the one they give you. But they tell me London is a nice course. Even the cobbles, I hope, are not very much of a problem for me.”
“Many people know that Ethiopia is poor. When I break a world record, maybe people get to know something else about Ethiopia, something good. We can't make planes or cars, we don't have the materials. We do what we can.”
“I was the kind of child who worked hard every day with the cows and sheep - I was a very aggressive boy.”
“Age for me is just a number.”
“I always tell young athletes the same thing, 'Wherever you go, whatever you do, what must your top priority be? Running.'”
“I feel a social responsibility. We need to open people's eyes. There is a lack of education in Ethiopia.”
“If I don't train enough, of course I'm nervous.”