Ethiopian Legend Has Sights on New Challenge

Haile Gebrselassie, the greatest distance runner in history, hopes to launch a new career when he competes in the Great Manchester Run over 10 kilometres today.

The 32-year-old Ethiopian has decided to forsake the track to concentrate on road-running, with the ultimate aim of breaking the world marathon record and winning the Olympic gold medal in Beijing in 2008.

Gebrselassie, winner of the Olympic 10,000 metres in 1996 and 2000, finished a disappointing fifth at the Games in Athens last summer after a truncated build-up because of injuries.

He confessed that he feels he can no longer cope with the younger runners on the track, especially his countryman and training partner Kenenisa Bekele, who has succeeded him as Olympic champion and world record-holder.

'The young men are so forceful and we have no choice but to pave the way for them on track,' said Gebrselassie. 'I'm not going to run any more major championship races on the track. I might run just one more track race this year, but now I want to concentrate on the marathon distance.'

Gebrselassie had hoped to run in the London Marathon last month, but a recurrence of his Achilles injury forced him to withdraw. He now plans an autumn marathon, possibly in Berlin in September or Chicago the following month.

At Loughborough, meanwhile, the track season begins in earnest with a six-team representative match featuring Olympic heptathlon bronze medal-winner Kelly Sotherton.

The Birchfield athlete, who faces the tough task of usurping Sweden's brilliant Carolina Klüft this summer, will put herself through a gruelling schedule by competing in the javelin, the high jump and the 100m hurdles.

She will take on AAA champion Goldie Sayers, of Belgrave Harriers, in the javelin, Welsh record-holder Julie Crane in the high jump and Great Britain's two leading hurdlers Sarah Claxton and Diane Allahgreen.

The meeting will also mark the first appearance of Nick Stewart, the latest athlete to switch his allegiance and compete for Britain. The 24-year-old had been Canada's top 400m hurdler and represented them internationally.

Stewart qualifies through having UK-born parents and, although he was born in South Africa before growing up in Canada, he has always held a British passport. He is now in his second year based at Loughborough, training with British number one Chris Rawlinson, who will also be competing today.

That should deflect claims of opportunism of the kind levelled against the American 400m runner Malachi Davis last year, when he switched on the eve of the Olympic trials after discovering he was eligible to run for Britain through his London-born mother and only arrived in this country for the first time the day before the meeting.

Davis qualified for Britain's team for Athens before returning to his native California to train. He is due back in the country next month when he will represent Britain in an international match against the United States and Russia in Glasgow.

Selection for that match will also be the target of Stewart, who ran 49.74sec last year before injury curtailed his season.