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Haile Gebrselassie
Haile Gebrselassie set world records in the marathon multiple times during the mid-to-late 2000s, primarily at the Berlin Marathon, and his transition from track running, where he'd already won multiple Olympic gold medals at 10,000 meters, to marathon dominance reflected an unusually successful late-career distance shift. His combination of Olympic gold medals on the track and his subsequent marathon world records gave Gebrselassie one of the most complete distance-running résumés in history, spanning both track and road racing at the sport's highest level across nearly two decades. Gebrselassie's rivalry with fellow Ethiopian distance runner Kenenisa Bekele, both on the track and later in marathon competition, reflected Ethiopia's sustained dominance of world distance running across successive generations of elite competitors. His combination of Olympic track gold medals and multiple marathon world records has made Gebrselassie one of the most complete and statistically dominant distance runners in the history of the sport, spanning both track and road racing disciplines.
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Grete Waitz
Grete Waitz won the New York City Marathon a record nine times between 1978 and 1988, establishing one of the most dominant individual records at any single major marathon in the sport's history, and her first NYC Marathon victory came in her very first attempt at the distance. Her sustained dominance helped significantly popularize women's marathon running during a period when the event was still relatively new to women's competitive athletics, having only been added to major marathons' women's fields in the preceding years. Waitz also won the marathon at the first-ever IAAF World Championships in 1983 and an Olympic silver medal at the 1984 Los Angeles Games, the first Olympics to include a women's marathon, giving her a significant role in the event's early Olympic history. Her record nine New York City Marathon victories and her broader role helping establish women's marathon running as a legitimate elite competitive discipline have made Waitz one of the most historically significant figures in the sport's development.
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