Posted: November 20, 2007

Athletics: Great Ethiopian Run Set For Sunday

From David Monti © 2007 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved RaceResultsWeekly.com The seventh edition of the Great Ethiopian Run International 10-K is set for Sunday in Addis Ababa. Organizers reported last week that more than 30,000 runners have registered for the event which was originally scheduled to take place on Sep. 9, to coincide with Ethiopia's Millennium celebrations, but was postponed because of security fears. For this event, Haile Gebrselassie assumes the role of race director, and he's invited a number of international guests, including Britain's former 5000m world record holder David Moorcroft and ING New York City Marathon race director, Mary Wittenberg, who will be making her first trip to Ethiopia. It's hard to run fast in Addis, which sits at 2355m (7726 ft.) of elevation. Nonetheless, Deriba Merga and Belaynesh Fekadu managed to run 28:19 and 33:03, respectively, when they won this event last year, each earning 25,000 birr (about USD 2750). Subscribe to the Runner's Web Weekly Digest