The man regarded as the greatest distance runner of all time, Haile Gebrselassie will take on Australia’s Craig Mottram on the streets of Melbourne, Australia’s sporting capital, on 30 November 2008 at the first staging of the Great Australian Run in Melbourne, Australia.

The Great Australian Run will take place over a 15 kilometre route, starting and finishing in Albert Park and taking in Melbourne landmarks such as the Yarra River, Flinders Street Station, the Tan and St Kilda Road.

Gebrselassie will run for Ethiopia over 10,000m in Beijing, the event in which he has already collected Olympic gold in Atlanta and Sydney. Mottram will race over 5000m in Beijing before returning to Australia for the event.

“I have wonderful memories back to 2000 Sydney Olympic Games.  It was the best race ever I’ve run in my athletics career,” Gebrselassie said from his home in Addis Ababa.

“The people of Australia, they love to watch sport, especially athletics.  Melbourne is a big town, a big city and I’ll love to compete there.”

A great historian of the sport, Gebrselassie was quick to mention the link between Ethiopian athletics and Melbourne, as the 1956 Olympic Games witnessed the first athletes from his country to participate in Olympic competition, although it wasn’t until Abebe Bikila famously ran barefoot to win the marathon in Tokyo that they claimed their first gold medal.

“One thing I want to tell you about Melbourne – all the Ethiopians are not forgetting Melbourne 1956 when the first Ethiopians participated in the Olympic Games.  I will love to take part there.”

“Australia has many big long distance runners like Ron Clarke, Robert de Castella, Steve Moneghetti and now this fantastic runner Craig Mottram.  It is a rich history in Australia of long distance runners,” he said.

Craig Mottram encouraged the Australian fun running community to take up the once in a lifetime opportunity saying, “I know from experience that the Great Runs put on a huge show and a great event, and I hope that joggers of all levels will get behind this one in Melbourne.”

“What other sport do you get to line up against the best athlete in the world? You can’t play golf against Tiger Woods or tennis against Roger Federer but on 30 November we can run against the great Gebrselassie right here in our back yard.”

Nicola Hedley – NOVA - for the IAAF