Ethiopia’s twotime Olympic and four-time World 10,000m champion Haile Gebrselassie was in attendance as the 1600 schoolchildren from more than sixty-five schools across Addis Ababa took part in the 2006 Europe Day Races.
The race, organised by the Great Ethiopian Run for which Gebrselassie acts as the director, was part of the organisation’s efforts to promote mass participation races in Ethiopia and is the third race staged in 2006 after the Wolkitay Run against Trachoma in January and the 2006 Confidence Women 5km run in March.
A total of six races were held for both boys and girls with participants taking part in under-8 and under-11 category over the 1.2km and the 2km for under-14.
Gebrselassie was also on hand to award special prizes to the first three finishers in each category with Awolia School taking the overall schools’ prize for providing the majority number of top three finishers.
Elshadai Negash for the IAAF