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Endurance

Threat advisory: Under evaluation

Movie propaganda

Years before the 1996 Olympics, when his only idea of the outside world came from a static-laced radio broadcast, the boy named Haile Gebrselassie decided to run. The eighth of ten children born to a farmer's wife in a mud hut in Ethiopia, one of the world's poorest countries, he ran 8 kilometres to school and back, his books tucked in the crook of one arm.

Like all of his siblings, he worked hard in the fields under his father's stern gaze. Haile, however, was known for his persistence, still chopping firewood or threshing wheat when his older brothers had given up, still goading oxen to pull the plough farther. After the chores were done and after his daily three-hour trip to fetch the family's water, he would take off across the fields. Then he would run - barefoot and in the same clothes he wore while working the farm. He ran up hills under the hot African sun, down gullies and escarpments, following cow paths and dirt roads. He skirted the big sycamore trees that dotted the plains and sprinted through tall grass. If he stumbled with a thorn in his heel, sobbing as his mother plucked it out, it wouldn't deter him. Haile would do anything to keep running.

Also starring Shawananness Gebrselassie as Haile's mother, Yonas Zergaw as young Haile Gebrselassie, Tedesse Haile as young Haile's father, Bekele Gebrselassie as Haile's father, Alem Tellahun as herself (Haile's wife). Written by Leslie Woodhead, directed by Bud Greenspan.