Dubai: World record holder Haile Gebrselassie said he learned a lesson from Friday's Dubai marathon.
"I learn something from every marathon and from this I learned that I needed to be patient in the beginning," said Gebrselassie after missing the world record by 27 seconds.
"I committed a mistake in the beginning. I ran too fast. There was a lack of communication when I was running too fast. The idea was to complete the first half in about 62 minutes, but I was almost half a minute too fast. I paid the price for that in the final stages of the race," he candidly admitted.
Vows to return
Gebrselassie is not willing to give up. "I will return here again next year and try and break the world record," he said.
When asked whether he was disappointed at losing $1million, Gebrselassie said: "This is not the first time I missed a million. In 1996 too I had missed such a chance. Though I missed the record I am happy that I could run at this speed."
Joseph Koech, who ran as pace maker for Gebrselassie, blamed the fast start. "The weather was really nice. The course was also excellent. The first half was too quick," he told Gulf News.
"I ran as pace maker for Gebrselassie because we are both working under the same manager Jos Hermens. I have not run as a pace maker since 2004. I decided to be a pace maker here because I want to run in the Hamburg marathon. So I wanted to do something here," said Koech, who had once recorded a personal best of 2:08:02 in Rotterdam to finish second.
"Gebrselassie will break his record soon. He is a determined man," said Koech, who may return to Dubai as a runner and not a pace maker.
