Athletics Australia – NEWS – World\’s greatest set for HBA Great Australian Run

The man regarded as the greatest distance runner of all time, Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie comes to the streets of Melbourne on a dual mission this Sunday – to take on our own number one, Craig Mottram, whilst attempting to break the 15km world record, he has already once been denied.

The inaugural HBA Great Australian Run will also provide the weekend warrior with the chance to run with the world’s best and a host of local sporting and entertainment celebrities on a fast and unique street circuit – starting and finishing on the Grand Prix track at Albert Park.

The HBA Great Australian Run is part of the world’s biggest mass participation running programme, which now makes its Southern Hemisphere debut in Australia’s sporting capital. It is expected that up to 4,000 participants will take part in what has quickly become the highest quality distance race ever stage in Australia, outside the Sydney Olympics.

The HBA Great Australian Run provides an unprecedented opportunity for Australia’s newly emerging distance talent to run on the same course at the same times as the current world marathon record holder, multiple world and Olympic champion Gebrselassie, as well as Mottram  and Australia’s best female distance runner Benita Johnson, and the likes of Beijing Olympic marathon champ Constantina Dita, world champion Catherine Ndereba, Commonwealth men’s gold medallist Samson Ramadhani and Kenyan star Patrick Makau.

Gebrselassie once again amazed the athletics world on 28 September this year when he set his 26th world record in the Berlin Marathon, becoming the first man to better 2 hours 4 minutes for the gruelling 42.195km distance.

“I have wonderful memories back to 2000 Sydney Olympic Games.  It was the best race ever I’ve run in my athletics career,” Gebrselassie said at the time of his signing for Sunday’s race.

“The people of Australia, they love to watch sport, especially athletics. Melbourne is a big town, a big city and I’ll love to compete there.”

A great historian of the sport, Gebrselassie constantly mentions the link between Ethiopian athletics and Melbourne, as the 1956 Olympic Games witnessed the first athletes from his country to participate in Olympic competition, although it wasn’t until Abebe Bikila famously ran barefoot to win the marathon in Rome that they claimed their first gold medal.

“One thing I want to tell you about Melbourne – all the Ethiopians are not forgetting Melbourne 1956 when the first Ethiopians participated in the Olympic Games.  I will love to take part there.”

“Australia has many big long distance runners like Ron Clarke, Robert de Castella, Steve Moneghetti and now this fantastic runner Craig Mottram.  It is a rich history in Australia of long distance runners,” he said.

Craig Mottram has encouraged the Australian fun running community to take up the once in a lifetime opportunity saying, “I know from experience that the Great Runs put on a huge show and a great event, and I hope that joggers of all levels will get behind this one in Melbourne.”

“What other sport do you get to line up against the best athlete in the world? You can’t play golf against Tiger Woods or tennis against Roger Federer but on Sunday we can run against the great Gebrselassie right here in our back yard.”

The HBA Great Australian Run is part of the Great Run Series, a programme of televised mass participation runs organised by Nova International Limited, originally in England but since spreading to Scotland, Wales, Ireland and most recently Ethiopia.  

Brendan Foster, Olympic and Commonwealth medallist at 10,000 metres, BBC athletics commentator and founder of Nova said, “I was so inspired by the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne – the massive crowds with the whole sporting spirit of the city on display – that we decided then and there that the next destination for the Great Run was Melbourne.”

“It’s taken us over two years, but in two days time we will achieve that goal. To kick off with Haile Gebrselassie, the greatest distance runner the world has ever seen, a man who has set 26 world records, against Australia’s best in Craig Mottram is the best possible introduction. Will this be number 27?”

The HBA Great Australian Run will take place over a 15 kilometre route, starting and finishing in Albert Park and taking in Melbourne landmarks such as the Yarra River, Flinders Street Station, the Tan and St Kilda Road.

It will be telecast live by Network Ten around Australia from 8.30am on race day, and the coverage will also be seen by countless millions around the globe when the highlights program is later transmitted by Great Run partner stations in Europe, Africa and Asia and by Fox Sport in Australia and New Zealand.

Entries are open until 8.00pm on Friday evening, via www.greataustralianrun.com.au whilst runners can also enter in person at the adidas store in Bourke Street Mall on Saturday between 10.00am and 5.00pm.