A retired long-distance track and road runner from Ethiopia, Haile Gebrselassie was born on April 18, 1973. He is also a successful businessman. Over 10,000 meters, he captured four World Championship championships in addition to two Olympic gold medals. He not only had three straight victories at the Dubai Marathon but also won the Berlin Marathon four times in a row. In addition, he was the 2001 World Half Marathon Champion and the winner of four world championships indoors. Haile has constantly brought Ethiopia’s name before the globe, like very few other renowned Ethiopians, and many nations have shown him enormous admiration outside of the field of athletics. Haile moved from outdoor, indoor, and cross-country running to road running in the latter half of his career. He had significant competitive victories at distances ranging from 1500 meters to the marathon. In the same village as Kenenisa Bekele, Derartu grew up caring for livestock in the mountains of Arsi Province’s Bekoji village. She is the cousin of Genzebe, Tirunesh, and Ejegayehu Dibaba. Derartu won the 10,000 m race at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, becoming the first Ethiopian woman and the first female athlete from Africa to win an Olympic gold medal. Her career was begun by the race, in which she and Elana Meyer (South Africa) raced for lap after lap well ahead of the rest of the field. She missed the years 1993 and 1994 due to a knee injury, but she competed again at the 1995 IAAF World Cross Country Championships and took home the gold medal despite arriving only an hour before the race began. She spent a full day without sleep in the Athens airport.
