Going for gold

The starting line for Haile Gebrselassie's run at history stretches across the Mondo track at the Reggie Lewis Center in Roxbury.

Gebrselassie begins his pursuit of a third Olympic gold medal in the 10,000 meters tomorrow when he runs in the 3,000-meter race at the Adidas Boston Indoor Games. It is only the third time the legendary Gebrselassie has run in the United States, after the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta and the 1992 Junior World Championships at Franklin Park, when he was 17. (He finished second, in the snow.)

This is not just a training run for the 30-year-old Ethiopian. He hopes to break the 3,000-meter indoor world record held by Daniel Komen (7 minutes 24.90 seconds, 1998). It is a world record he once owned, and he wants it back.

Gebrselassie, who currently holds five world records (5,000, 12:39.36; 10,000, 26:22.75; 10K roads, 27:02; 2-mile indoor, 8:04.69, and 5,000 indoor, 12:50.38), has a stack of world records, so many he's not sure of the number. And does the 3,000 WR count once, or for each of the three times he set it?

"It's 18, or 17, I'm not sure," he said yesterday after arriving in Boston following a 22-hour trip from Ethiopia. Gebrselassie offered his huge smile, and shrugged, as if the records were not important. Gebrselassie will need to lower his six-year-old PR of 7:26.15 by 1.25 seconds to equal Komen's mark.

He is here, in part, because the meet sponsor, Adidas, is also his sponsor. "Many things happen here at this meet," Gebrselassie said. "Last year, I heard it was a very good track."

He is also here because he is working on his speed in preparation for the 10,000 at the Athens Olympics, and the 3,000 is the longest indoor event. And he is also here because he is ready to run a world-record time. He made it clear he would not compete were he not prepared.

For Gebrselassie, each competition is important. Though small and wiry, he is strong. He runs with a country on his shoulders.

A hero at home -- and the word doesn't really do justice to his status in Ethiopia, where he is often referred to as The Emperor -- Gebrselassie has ruled distance running around the world for 10 years.

He has two Olympic gold medals in the 10,000 (Atlanta 1996 and Sydney 2000) and four world championships at 10,000 meters (1993, '95, '97, '99). He has set an undetermined-number-but-nearing-20 world records, and nine times he has been world champion at distances from 1,500 meters to the half-marathon. He did not lose a 10,000-meter race between 1993 and 2001.

Thirty years into his life, he is routinely described as Gebrselassie, the greatest distance runner of all time. A third Olympic gold in the 10K is a feat never before accomplished. Not by his countrymen and childhood heroes, Abebe Bakila, master of the marathon, nor Miruts Yifter, who won the 10,000 at the 1980 Moscow Olympics and sparked Gebrselassie's imagination.

A hat trick in the 10,000 would perhaps move the adjectival clause following Gebrselassie's name to a proper title, capital letters and all. World's Greatest Distance Runner Of All Time Haile Gebrselassie.

Raised on a farm in central Ethiopia in a family of nine, Gebrselassie now lives in the city of Addis Ababa, where he and his family run a real estate firm that employs more than 200 people. He has three daughters. He considers a second career in politics. He is a man of responsibility.

"When I was young," he said, "if I lost, it didn't matter. Now, it's different. I don't want to come to any competition if I don't have good training.

"I have responsibility for many things. If you asked me 6, 8, 10 years ago, I would say I live only for myself. Now I have responsibility. First of all, for my family. I have responsibility for the ones who work for my company to keep the company going the right way, to pay their salaries.

"I have responsibility to be a good example for others. Youngsters always follow what Haile's doing. That's why I have responsibility. Every step is very careful; everything I'm doing, everything I'm saying, everything I'm trying to do, is [mindful of] what will happen after I do such things."

As a youngster, he ran 6 miles to and from school, and chased down wayward farm animals. His training is on the track now, and a long line of young Ethiopians train with him, chasing their own dreams. He considers his teammates his primary competition.

"Our problem is just to beat each other," he said, "it's not to beat other country's runners.

Nevertheless, it was a Kenyan, Paul Tergat, who challenged Gebrselassie in the race he considers his finest victory.

At the Sydney Games, in the 10,000, the two men raced down the final straightaway stride for stride. Gebrselassie hit the line a fraction of a lean in front.

"That was something very special, not just for me but for everyone, for many reasons," Gebrselassie said. "First, we are very close to each other. And this usually doesn't happen with distance runners, it happens with sprinters.

"Also, before Sydney, I had so many problems. When I went there, I was 50-50 [on running]. Then when I got there, I said, `Let me run, let me try,' and it happened."

It was an Ethiopian teammate, Kenenisa Bekele, who beat Gebrselassie in the 10,000 at the World Championships in Paris last August. Bekele will run in a 3,000 in Stuttgart tomorrow, hours before Gebrselassie takes the track at the Reggie Lewis Center.

"I'll try to see what they run," he said, "and hope it's just a good chance to run faster than them."

Gebrselassie doesn't just run fast, he runs hard.

"Once you start running," he said, "you always try to create something new. Here, tomorrow, I have to do something different. It's a big thing to win. It's because of those youngsters. I'm trying to keep with them. I've become a little bit jealous."

The marathon is Gebrselassie's next goal. In 2002, he ran the London Marathon in 2:06:34, then the fastest debut marathon in history, but he ruled the race out for Athens because of the heat. The marathon's time will come.

"I have a long future after Athens," he said. "I will try to run a marathon at the end of the year. And Boston is a possibility."