By Adam Williams
BERLIN, Aug 7 (Reuters) – Ethiopian distance champion Haile Gebrselassie will again attempt to break the world marathon record in Berlin next month after his narrow miss last year.
“My aim is to break the record”, the twice Olympic champion over 10,000 metres told a news conference in the German capital on Tuesday.
“Berlin will be the most important race of 2007 for me…sometimes there is one city where you feel something, a kind of confidence.
“The good thing about Berlin is the course,” he added about the Sept. 30 race. “I’m in good shape. It was very close last year. I’m looking forward to this year. Who knows?”
In 2006, Gebrselassie won the Berlin race in a personal best time of two hours, five minutes, 56 seconds — which was 61 seconds slower than his great track rival Paul Tergat’s world record set over the same course in 2003.
Tantalisingly, Gebrselassie was inside world record pace for much of the race on the flat, fast course through Berlin but he was slowed in the final kilometres by headwinds as he ran alone.
“The last part was the problem last year,” said Gebrselassie of the course that was hit by unusual winds from the east when it passed through the high-rise Potsdamer Platz square about two km from the finish at Brandenburg Gate.
“This year I’m doing a little bit of extra mileage and I do the last part a little faster in training,” he said.
Gebrselassie, 34, won four successive world titles over 10,000 metres and set numerous world records before he turned to road racing.
He won the Fukuoka marathon in Japan in December, but dropped out of the London marathon in April.