The eighth of ten children born to a farmer’s wife in a mud hut in Ethiopia, Haile Gabreselassie would run six miles to school and back each day and like all of his brothers and sisters, he worked hard in the fields as well. As a young boy, he was known to keep on chopping firewood or threshing wheat long after his older brothers had quit. After the chores were done in the house and the three-hour trip to fetch water for the family, he would take off across the fields, running up hills under the hot African sun. Young Haile Gabreselassie would do anything to keep running.
At first, he seemed no different than any other young Ethiopian, but all that changed one day in 1980. Young Haile Gabreselassie had just come home from fetching water to meet a deserted house because everyone was working in the fields. He picked up his father’s radio and turned it on and at that very moment the famous Ethiopian runner, Merits Yiffta, was running thousands of miles away at the Moscow Olympics. Haile was totally focused as he listened to the broadcast of Yiffta’s dramatic victory. It was a turning point in his life. That day he decided to be a runner.
Haile began to run more, longer and faster with the co- operation of his family. On the 12-mile journey to the market to buy cattle, he was given the job of leading the bulls home, because once it bolted, he was the only one who could keep up with it.
Finally at the age of 17 Haile moved into his brother’s home in Addis Ababa. There he started to train with the Ethiopian junior national team and placed 99th in his first marathon. His reaction though was atypical, the loss made him even more determined to succeed. He would wake up early every morning, a solitary figure weaving in and out of traffic, his focus and vision never changed. As far as Haile Gabreselassie was concerned and in spite of his early losses, the world would one day be his stage.
At the age of 19, he hit the international scene when he placed second at the World Junior Cross Country Championships in Boston. By then it was obvious that Haile was a star. By 1996 at the age of 23, Haile was one of the world’s top distance runners at the Atlanta Olympics. Just like 15 years before when he listened to the radio broadcast of Yiffta’s victory at the Olympics on radio, the 10,000 meters was being broadcast around the globe. Only this time, it was on television and Haile Gebreselassie was in the race. In addition, Haile was running with an injured foot, a severe blister that had become infected during training. Later, he would say it felt like running on fire, but he persisted in spite of the pain. Halfway into the race, he pulled ahead of the pack, enduring the pain as if he were in a dream. In the final moments, the son of an Ethiopian village farmer crossed the line to win the Gold medal. The rest is history.
Today Disney Productions is capturing the true-life story of this son of Africa, and indeed, one of the world’s greatest athletes ever, in a movie titled “Endurance.” According to film producer, Edward Pressman, Haile Gabreselassie is an Olympian who symbolizes the courage to win, not just for himself, but for his country, and whose humility made him a natural choice for the movie.
For Haile Gabreselassie, factors other than hard work have been at play in his life. Among them, is his faith as a Christian. Haile is married to Allin, who he met as a teenager while training in Addis. In his home country Ethiopia, Haile Gabreselassie is regarded, not only as one of the world’s greatest athletes, but as a genuine hero. After his victory at the Atlanta Olympics, it was reported that nearly one million people turned up at the airport to receive him.
If there is a message to “Endurance”, the movie being made about Haile Gabreselassie, it is simply that in spite of humble beginnings with hard work, perseverance, and God on your side, no obstacle is too difficult to overcome and no race too difficult to run.
