Organizers of the ING New York City Marathon coveted Haile Gebrselassie’s participation ever since he took up marathon racing eight years ago. Now, finally, the Ethiopian is set to join 45,000 other runners on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge on November 7 to contest the 2010 race.

In addition to being a massive coup for the race, it also represents somewhat of a paradigm shift for Gebrselassie.

For the past four years, he has chased world records at the pancake-flat Berlin Marathon each September, setting the existing record of 2:03:59 in 2008. And, he has won in Dubai on three consecutive occasions, most recently last January. Over his marathon career, he has also racked up an enviable record measured no less by the fact that his 10th-best time is a staggering 2:06:52. Most of these times have been achieved with the aid of pacemakers.

There will be no official pacemakers in New York and the course record held by another Ethiopian, Tesfaye Jifar, is 2:07:43—surely evidence that a world record is out of the question. There must be another reason for the departure.

“If I win in New York, it’s New York. It’s like London; it is the one everybody wants to win,” Gebrselassie says. Simple.