Sabrina YohannesReuters
27 January 2000 - Double world indoor champion Haile
Gebrselassie has pulled out of all indoor track
competitions this season because of interruptions in his training after an Achilles tendon
injury last year.
The Ethiopian, world indoor champion at 1,500 and 3,000 metres, was scheduled to start his
season in Dortmund, Germany,next Sunday.
"He's training but after his injury he's not in top, top shape, so we cancelled his indoor competitions," Gebrselassie's Dutch manager Jos Hermens said in a telephone interview.
Gebrselassie, 26, sustained the injury to his right Achilles tendon towards the end of the outdoor season last year. After suffering blisters on both feet in winning the 10,000 metres at the world championships in Seville last August he cancelled his last two competitions of the year -- a meeting in Brussels and the All-Africa Games in Johannesburg in September.
"He's okay now but we had to take it easy," Hermens, speaking from the Netherlands, said.
Gebrselassie has cancelled all his indoor races, including a meeting on February 20 in Birmingham, England, where he reclaimed the world indoor 5,000 metres record last year.
Gebrselassie, who broke the 2,000 metres record at the same meeting the previous year, has set at least one indoor world record every year since 1996 when he ran in his first indoor competition.
"He's back in training but he had wanted to run world record or close to world record times," Hermens said. "He limited his work-outs after the injury but has now resumed his full training routine.
"What's important for him is that he can train again. It's an Olympic year, so we don't want to take any chances."
Four times world 10,000 metres champion outdoors, Gebrselassie expects to defend his Olympic 10,000 metres title in Sydney, Hermens said.
Gebrselassie's first international competition of the year is likely to be on May 28 in the Dutch town of Hengelo where he usually starts his outdoor season.
The first quarter of 2000 will not, however, be totally uneventful for Gebrselassie. He and his wife Alem Tellahun, who have a one-and-a-half-year-old daughter, are expecting their second child in the next few weeks.
