Million Wolde wins 2000 Olympic 5000m gold (© Getty Images)
It was no surprise when an Ethiopian won the men’s Olympic 5000 metres title in Sydney 2000. What was a shock was that it should be Million Wolde. Sure, he’d had a good junior career, notably winning the World Junior title at the same distance two years before in Annecy, France, in 1998. But his only international form in early 2000 was a 15th place in the World Cross Country short course (4k) in Vilamoura, Portugal five months before Sydney.
Speaking in Ras Al Khaimah on Thursday (7), the day before his return to competition in the RAK half-marathon in the tiny Emirate (UAE), Wolde concedes that there were many men faster than him in the slow-run Sydney final. “(Ali) Saïdi-Sief was fast, and so was (Brahim) Lahlafi, but on the last lap, I was faster. I always thought I could win”. Wolde ran the last lap in 53 seconds, relegating the much fancied Saïdi-Sief of Algeria to second and Lahlafi of Morocco to third.
But unofficial Ethiopian team manager, Getaneh Tessema sums up the general feeling, even for Wolde’s colleagues. “Of course it was a big surprise for everybody. Million, Olympic champion? Nobody expected him even to be in the top three. Even his expectation was not like that”.
But Wolde underlined his new status by going on to win the 5000 metres silver medal in the World Championships in Edmonton the following year. He ran some reasonable, if not scintillating times in 2002, but since then, we’ve barely heard a word from him.
“I started to get problems in 2003,” he says, “first in my back and then in my right leg. I had treatment in Addis, and in Germany, and in Saudi (Arabia). I had a small operation, and was in plaster for almost three months. I started back running in the swimming pool, but I couldn’t run properly for a year or more”.
Wolde, now 28, had an chronic version of the common affliction for the distance runner, known as ‘shin splints,’ severe inflammation of connective tissue in the front of the leg. Whereas the enforced rest usually clears up the condition in weeks, if not months, Wolde’s incapacity would stretch to five years. “My normal weight was between 58 and 62 kilograms, but I went up to 79”.
He attempted a comeback two years ago in a four miles road race in Groningen, in the Netherlands. “I was tenth, but the problem came back. But now, I’ve been able to train for six months without a problem”.
Wolde is unusual in that he is one of the very few Ethiopian athletes of renown to hail from the capital, Addis Ababa. “We even call him ‘city-boy,’ says Getaneh, who is married to Gete Wami, incidentally.
“The reason most athletes come from the provinces is that they walk a long way to school, so get a good basic fitness that the city children don’t get, with cars and television”.
Wolde admits that he was a football (soccer) fanatic at school. “But I also liked running in the forest, and when I was 17, I joined one of the bank teams”. Within a year, he was finishing fifth in the steeplechase in the World Junior Championships in Sydney, a location where he would strike the purest of athletics gold four years later.
Now weighing in at 68 kilos, still a little more than he’d like, he’s making no promises or predictions for the RAK ‘half’ on Friday, a race packed with current stars from neighbouring Kenya and Tanzania. “I’d like to run a marathon, but I need to lose a little more weight, get to between 62 and 65 (kilos). Tomorrow will show what I need to do.”
Last year’s race was won in 58:53, and with four sub-60min men in Friday morning’s event, organisers confidently expect at least two or three of them to go close to 59 minutes, if not faster. Someone suggests 62 minutes to Wolde. He shrugs and smiles. “He’s come here to do two things,” says Getaneh. “To test himself, and to keep in touch with the sport. If he can do 62 minutes, it will be really something.”
Pat Butcher for the IAAF
