Haile Gebrselassie’s 8:01.08 world record falls 29 years ago today

Haile Gebrselassie loses 2-mile world record to Daniel Komen on 31 May 1997

Haile Gebrselassie’s 29-year-old world record over two miles crumbled on 31 May 1997 when Daniel Komen of Kenya ran 7:58.61 in Hechtel, Belgium. Gebrselassie’s mark of 8:01.08 had stood since 1987, a stretch that spanned a decade of dominance in middle-distance running.

What happened in Hechtel that night

The Hechtel Night of Track in Belgium delivered one of the decade’s biggest upsets. Komen, then 21, sliced 2.47 seconds off Gebrselassie’s 8:01.08 set in Hengelo ten years earlier. The Kenyan’s 7:58.61 became the first sub-8-minute 2-mile in history and instantly redefined the event’s speed ceiling.

Gebrselassie had set the previous standard on 31 May 1987 in Hengelo, running 8:01.08 to erase his own 8:06.2 from the same track a year earlier. That mark had survived a decade, a period in which the Ethiopian extended his reign across 5,000 m, 10,000 m and the marathon.

Why the record mattered for Haile Gebrselassie

At the time Gebrselassie was the undisputed king of the track’s middle distances. His 5,000 m and 10,000 m world records and two Olympic golds in 1996 had cemented his status as the era’s greatest distance runner. The 2-mile record was a rare gap in his résumé, one he filled with authority in 1987.

Komen’s breakthrough came just months after Gebrselassie had claimed his second straight world 10,000 m title in Athens. The Kenyan’s arrival signaled a generational shift, one that would soon see East African milers rewrite the record books from 1,500 m up to the marathon.

What came next after the record fell

Komen’s 7:58.61 stood for only 13 months before Haile Gebrselassie reclaimed the record in 1998, running 7:58.33 in Hechtel. The back-and-forth between the two became a hallmark of late-90s middle-distance racing.

Gebrselassie later shifted focus to the marathon, where he rewrote the event’s history with world records in Berlin and Dubai. His 2-mile record remains a footnote, but it marked the moment a new wave of Kenyan milers began chipping away at his track legacy.