Haile Gebrselassie's 1996 Olympic bib (© IAAF)
Fourtime World champion and twotime Olympic gold medallist Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia has donated his 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games bib number to the IAAF’s Athletics for a Better World project.
A beautifully smooth runner, perhaps the greatest ever, Gebrselassie also won 4 World Indoor titles and set 18 World records throughout his career.
At 32 years of age, Gebrselassie ran what will probably remain his last track race in a major championships at the Athens Olympic Games where he finished an honourable fifth despite being injured.
Gebrselassie donated the bib which led him to the first of two Olympic titles in Atlanta 1996 where he out-sprinted arch rival and Athletics for a Better World patron Paul Tergat and set a then Olympic record of 27:07.34.
Gebrselassie’s autographed bib will be auctioned at the end of the season and all profits made will be donated to the United Nations Associations: FAO, UNICEF and WFP.