Haile Gebrselassie: The Master of Masters
Still running with the world’s best at age 40, Ethiopia’s great Haile Gebreselassie gets a lot more than training done in a day.
Here’s what the running world knows of Haile Gebrselassie. He has won two Olympic gold medals, seven world outdoor championship medals, and set dozens of world records, including what was then the marathon best of 2:03:59 in Berlin in 2008. In short, he’s widely considered the greatest distance runner in history.
But few outside of Ethiopia know his business ventures nearly match his running resume. Over the past two decades, Haile & Alem International PLC, the company he founded with his wife, Alem, has built three hotels, two primary schools, six office towers, a 1,500-hectare coffee plantation and Addis Ababa’s first cinema. Another subsidiary company, Marathon Motors, imports Hyundai cars to Ethiopia. And they have plans to build an SUV assembly plant in Addis. Most recently, Gebrselassie’s company has begun construction of a housing and condominium complex.
Read more at: Running WorldÂ
