Haile Gebrselassie said farewell to the Olympic Games last night with a performance that won him no place on the podium but earned an ovation that will live long in his mind. Twice a gold medal winner at 10,000 metres, the 31-year-old had the satisfaction of seeing two of his younger compatriots, Kenenisa Bekele and Sileshi Sihine, finish first and second while he took an honourable fifth place.
For his final appearance at the games, the double champion came into the stadium at the rear of the file of 23 runners, smiling and waving to the crowd. Accepting a handshake from Dan Browne of the United States, he lined up close to Bekele, the 22-year-old whose exploits this season have given Ethiopia a new hero. A barley farmer's son who grew up in a village a few miles away from that of the great Derartu Tulu, Bekele started the season by breaking the world indoor 5,000m record in Birmingham before setting new world records at both 5,000 and 10,000m.
The younger man hit the front from the start, with the 21-year-old Sihine on his shoulder and Gebrselassie in the middle of the pack. Dieudonné Disi of Rwanda, John Yuda and Fabiano Joseph of Tanzania, Moses Mosop of Kenya, Boniface Kiprop of Uganda and Zersenay Tadesse of Eritrea were others who forced their way to the front in an attempt to break the Ethiopian hegemony.
Gebrselassie moved up to join the leading group with 17 of the 25 laps to go. For a period in mid-race the green-shirted trio circulated in isolation at the head of the field, to the glee of the flag-waving Ethiopian supporters clustered in the north-east corner of the stadium. With seven laps to go Gebrselassie fell back behind Bekele, Sihine and Kiprop, but Tadesse quickly towed the old champion back to the leaders.
He clung on to the back of the group for a while, but the mirage was not to last. Soon he was dropping back again, leaving his team-mates to deal with the 22-year-old Tadesse while he trailed the 18-year-old Kiprop, this year's world junior champion. Tadesse had already been dropped when Bekele surged at the sound of the bell, sprinting away from Sihine as though they were just beginning a training sprint. Bekele covered the final lap in 53sec, completing the race in 27min 5.1sec, a new Olympic record but 45sec outside his world mark.
This was the most significant stage in Gebrselassie's informal farewell tour. On July 30 he said goodbye to his British fans by winning a 5,000m at a packed Crystal Palace in a British all-comers' record time and basking in the warmth of a knowledgeable crowd. Last night the applause rang round Athens' magnificent new stadium.
His two Olympic 10,000m victories in 1996 and 2000 put the Ethiopian on level terms with three of the greatest distance runners of the last century. The first was Paavo Nurmi, the Flying Finn, who won in 1920 and 1928 and would probably have made it four in 1924 and 1932 had he not been denied by the authorities. The second was Emil Zatopek, the great Czech who triumphed in London in 1948 and on the Finns' home turf four years later. And the third was another Finn, Lasse Viren, who fell and got up to win in 1972 and then again in 1976.
But there was never a 10,000m race like the one in which Gebrselassie took his second title. The first had come in Atlanta, in a relatively straightforward victory over Paul Tergat of Kenya. By the time they reached Sydney, Gebrselassie had inflicted a similar fate on his friend Tergat at the world championships of 1997 and 1999.
The occasion of his second win has gone down in history as the greatest night of athletics ever staged. Cathy Freeman's 400m victory would by itself have been enough for a crowd of 112,000 adoring Aussies. But they were also presented with Michael Johnson's unprecedented second 400m win, Jonathan Edwards's triple-jump victory, Maria Mutola's first gold medal in the 800m, and finally the most enthralling men's 10,000m race of all time, won by Gebrselassie from Tergat. The Kenyan led as they entered the final straight, but Gebrselassie inched closer with every stride and finally pushed ahead to take the verdict by 0.9sec, the vast stadium almost achieving lift-off as the crowd erupted.
There was no such drama to marvel at last night, although Bekele's performance was that of a true champion. But the great man bowed out with dignity and the last flash in an Olympic arena of that unbreakable smile before he disappeared into the throng of adoring Ethiopians.
