SportsPageFair

Haile Gebrselassie’s disappointing performance and non-performance at the recent Beijing Olympics is now ancient history. Ethiopia’s most celebrated endurance runner broke his own world record by nearly one second per mile Sunday, Sep. 28, when he won the Berlin Marathon in 2 hours, 3 minutes and 59 seconds. Gebrselassie didn’t run in the Olympic marathon because of Beijing’s polluted air, and he finished sixth in the 10,000 meters.

But while winning the Berlin Marathon for the third straight year on Sunday, Gebrselassie averaged about 4 minutes and 44 seconds per mile on the flat course.

The 35-year-old Gebrselassie set the previous world marathon mark of 2:04:26 last year at the Berlin Marathon. He also won the event in 2006 in 2:05.56.

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Welcome to SportsPageFair.com. As a sportswriter for more than 30 years, I contribute articles to myriad print and online publications and news organizations — The Associated Press to PGA Tour Partners (the national magazine of the PGA Tour) and the Sacramento Bee, a regional daily newspaper in the capital of California, to Reuters, the international news service.

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I’m particularly fond of endurance sports. I’ve reported on cycling for more than 25 years. I’ve attended the Tour de France start to finish 10 times, and in 2005 I co-wrote Tour de France For Dummies with renowned international broadcaster Phil Liggett.

I like endurance sports in part because I’m endurance sports participant; I’ve completed more than 80 marathons and ultramarathons.

Golf is also among my favorite sports. With rare exception, the pro men and women I’ve interviewed and reported on through the years are cordial, articulate athletes. And it’s easy to like the location of most golf tournaments.

During my career, I’ve also covered the National Football League, National Basketball Association, Major League baseball, tennis and boxing. And in more than a dozen countries, I’ve written about the full spectrum of niche sports followed by passionate fans — cross country skiing to motorcycle racing, rowing to triathlon.

I’ve interviewed Julius Irving about his golf game and Lance Armstrong about running. I’ve never met anyone nicer than the great Norwegian runner Grete Waitz. Three-time Tour de France winner Greg LeMond has been extraordinarily friendly to me (and to lots of other journalists) through the years.

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