Top 44 Haile Gebrselassie Quotes

He was not a runner, my father, but he was quick. I always remember it was very difficult to escape from him when he was angry. If he wanted to beat us he would always catch us. Even me, he could always catch me.

This hand is not very active always, because it was in this hand that I carried my books. My carrying hand was always my strongest. Now I think my other hand has developed more muscles from signing all those autographs.

You need three things to win: discipline, hard work and, before everything maybe, commitment. No one will make it without those three. Sport teaches you that.

When we race in London a world record will be the last thing on our minds.

Like some high official, you have to tell your brain: ‘Do it. Come on. I have to do it.’

You lose the speed before the stamina.

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‘.

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.

Eradicate poverty. This is all that matters in my country. When I am out training I think about this a lot; when I am running it is going over in my mind. As a country we cannot move forward until we eradicate poverty.

When I wake up at 5 in the morning is it just to jog? Definitely not, I give it all of my efforts.

Once you have commitment, you need the discipline and hard work to get you there.

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.

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.

In the rainy season, sometimes to get to the first lesson we had to run really quick, because we had to cross the river to school and we’d have to go up and down the bank to find a place to cross because there is no bridge.

I haven‘t done a marathon for a long time. So we’ll see. I will need good luck.

I have to change a lot of things before I become a good marathon runner.

I find the business world hard.

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.

If you’re planning only to make money and nothing else, you’ll be broke.

You know the marathon in my country is just exceptional. It’s like soccer in England. If England win the world cup and Ethiopia win the marathon – it’s the same.

It is not my duty to spend my money in my country, but it is what I want to do. There is nowhere else I would like to invest.

In the marathon a crazy athlete can just keep pushing from the beginning, at a championship you don’t need a time just to win the race.

Athletes have to be confident and I am thinking like that.

When I run in Ethiopia, I look out and see eucalyptus trees and rivers.

When you run the marathon, you run against the distance, not against the other runners and not against the time.

If I don’t train enough, of course I’m nervous.

That is not enough. Sport has been great for me, a great learning place that if you want to achieve you can, even if you are from the poorest part of Africa.

I think if you come first with a new world record, that is the best.

I’m never satisfied.

I used to run to school, 10k every day. And this at altitude, perfect preparation, really.

I want to go down in history.

Some people start a sport just to reduce weight, or some say, ‘My doctor ordered me to run and do exercise‘, and for others, they run for completely different benefits. But it is not like that with sport. We need to eat, we need to rest, but also we need to run.

In my life I do a lot of things but I never forget my training.

When I had no shoes I was comfortable – I used to run barefoot. When I wore shoes it was difficult. To run in shoes was ok, but at the beginning of my career it was hard.

I have seen things few of my countrymen have. The first time I went on an aeroplane I couldn’t work out how the lavatories worked up in the sky.

I wanted to be famous. I wanted people to talk about me.

Athletics is in my blood.

At the moment I am a little bit politician, yes. I think that could be my next step. It is not because I want power, it is because of what I think I could do for the people.

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.

At the end of the day, people want to see how fast you run.

If your body is damaged, wounded, it can be fixed, but if inside, mentally, you are wounded you cannot fix it, it’s hard.

If you are a really good marathoner, you have to run New York.

Since I achieved something, running has exploded in my country. For me sometimes it is difficult even to know who the athletes are who are competing at the highest level. There are thousands.