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Early career

Haile was born one of ten children in Asella, Ethiopia. As a child growing up on a farm, he used to run ten kilometres to school every morning, and the same distance back every evening. This led to a distinctive running posture, with his left arm crooked as if he was still holding his school books.

In 1992, Haile gained international recognition in Seoul, South Korea, when he won the 5000-metre and 10,000-metre races at the 1992 World Junior Championships and a silver medal in the junior race at the World Cross Country Championships held in Boston, the United States.

The following year, in 1993, Haile won the first of what would eventually be four consecutive world championships titles in the men's 10,000 metres at the 1993, 1995, 1997, and 1999 World Championships. His win in 1993 was however his most infamous as he accidentally stepped on the heel of Moses Tanui 's shoe at the bell, causing it to fly off his foot. After the contact, with just one shoe, an angered Tanui moved out to a 10-meter lead, only to have Haile run him down on the final straight. Also at the 1993 World Championships he ran in the 5,000-metre race to finish a close second behind Ismael Kirui of Kenya. In 1994 he won a bronze medal at the IAAF World Cross Country Championships. Later that year he set his first world record by running 12:56.96 in the 5,000 metres, breaking Saïd Aouita 's record by almost two seconds.

In 1995, Haile ran the 10,000 metres in 26:43.53 in Hengelo, the Netherlands, lowering the world record by nine seconds. That same summer, in Zürich, Switzerland, Haile ran the 5000 metres in 12:44.39, taking 10.91 seconds off the world record 12:55.30 (established by Kenya's Moses Kiptanui earlier in the year). Later that summer he won the 10k world championship with his final 200m being run in 25 seconds. This world record at the Weltklasse meet in Zürich was voted "Performance of the Year" for 1995 by Track & Field News magazine. At the same Weltklasse meet in Zürich in 1996, an exhausted Haile, suffering from blisters obtained on the hard track in Atlanta (where he had won the Olympic 10,000 metres gold), had no answer to the 58-second lap of Daniel Komen with five laps to go as Komen went on to win and just miss Haile's record, finishing in 12:45.09. In 1997, Haile turned the tables on Komen at the same meet. Coming off his third 10K world championship gold medal, Haile beat Komen in another Zürich classic on 13 August 1997, covering the final 200 metres in 26.8 seconds to break his 5000 metres world record with a time of 12:41.86. Komen, in turn, took Haile's record only nine days later when Komen ran a 12:39.74 performance in Belgium.