Tsegaye Kebede wins the 2008 Paris Marathon
(AFP / Getty Images)
(By Elshadai Negash for the IAAF) — Few observers who saw marathon runner Tsegaye Kebede enter the 2007 Abebe Bikila International Marathon in July last year as an unknown but emerge victorious in a new course record time would have thought that he would be carrying Ethiopia’s hopes for medals at the 29th Beijing Olympics.
But after a 2:06.40 performance en route to victory in the 2008 Paris International Marathon and several solid half marathon and 10km performances throughout the year, the 22-year old is now being touted as a genuine hope for medals in Beijing.
“I never thought that I could make the Olympic team this year,” he says. “I have always known that I am talented, but I did not expect to do well.”
Short career, outstanding success
Kebede’s rise to the top level has shocked the athletics community in Ethiopia. After all, he has only been training seriously for less than two years and competed internationally for less than a year.
Yet he currently has the second best progression for Ethiopian marathon runner in a single year which includes 2:15.34 (2007 Abebe Bikila Marathon), 2:08.16 (Rotterdam Marathon), and then 2:06.39 (Paris). He also has two sub 60-minute performances (59.00 at Ras Al Khamiah and 59.88 at the Zayed Half Marathon) over the half marathon and two 10km victories during this period.
“I am exceeding my own expectations,” he says. “I do not think training is the only reason for my improvement. But I have big confidence in myself and my abilities.”
Desperate upbringing
Kebede has earned over USD 100,000 in prize money this year thanks to his focus on major city marathons and other lucrative road races. He lives a life on relative luxury, a far cry from the days where he says “I had nothing”.
“I know that many athletes say that they started from nothing, but to be honest, I do not think many of them were as poor as I was a few years ago,” says Kebede, who was the fifth child in a large family of thirteen children.
Life was a struggle for Kebede and his family who survived on the earnings of his father’s traditional carpeting work. Because the earnings were not enough to support the family, Kebede collected firewood near his town Gerar Ber, 42kms north of Addis Ababa, for sale in markets. Earnings from this work put him well under the WHO’s poverty barrier of 1USD per day.
“I made about ETB 2.50 (USD 0.30) a day,” he says. “I would buy bread and some tea and would have only one meal a day. After that, I had nothing left in my pocket. I had to wake up the following morning to go back to work in order to survive. If I didn’t, there would be no food.”
In order to survive, Kebede also got a side job as a herder in order to pay for his school and the rest of the family. It was in school that he started showing an interest in sport, but only started running in 1995 after watching kids from the neighbourhood training.
“I was not really serious about becoming an athlete,” he said. “I just run to stay fit and pass time.”
He took part in his first real race the following year finishing 20th in a regional cross country race only to incur the wrath of his angry father who thought his son was wasting his time.
“I never complained about our life and even ate whatever I get,” he recalls. “I did not even told my father that I had started training, but he found out somehow and was upset that I was wasting time.”
Bright beginning
Despite the disapproval of his father, Kebede continued his training part-time and got his lucky break in the most unlikely of circumstances.
“In September 2006, I took part in a half marathon organized on the occasion of the world tourism day in Addis Ababa,” he recalls. “I only finished 21st in the race, but what happened at the end of the race changed my life.”
Although Kebede endured a forgettable time in the race, he caught the attention of Getaneh Tessema, marathon coach and agent. Tessema asked Kebede to come for a trial race with his training group in a few days. He shocked Tessema by finishing second in a 10km time trial only losing out to Deriba Merga, who would go on to win the Great Ethiopian Run 10km less than six weeks later.
Unlikely circumstances open door to international debut
Kebede progressed well enough under Tessema’s tutelage to convince his coach that he was ready to make his international debut. But a week before he was scheduled to race in Holland, he was denied a visa support letter by the Ethiopian Athletics Federation (EAF) because he belonged to a pilot project not an established athletics club.
“I was upset but there was no choice,” he recalls. “Because I could not go, my coach put me in the Abebe Bikila Marathon.”
However, Kebede’s troubles were by no means over.
A week before race date, Kebede and team mates travelled to Entoto, a popular training venue for Ethiopian runners on the outskirts of Addis Ababa. On their way back, they ‘nearly died’.
“We took a bus on our way down and the driver could not control the brakes,” he painfully recalls. “He did not say a word to us because he was afraid we might panic in fear. He tried to control the car, but when he came up against a steep curve, it was over for us. The bus skidded off the main road and into the forests. We all screamed for help, but we were all crushed.”
While others sustained heavy injuries, Kebede was lucky to escape with just a small leg wound. Many of his team mates were ruled out of the marathon the following weekend, but Kebede got the all-clear to compete.
“I do not wish something like this to anyone,” he says. “All the time I was praying ‘God, I came to Addis to change the life of my family. Are you going to end my life here? Please save my life.’ My prayers were answered. I thought I would die for those few minutes, but I think I was given another life.”
Securing Olympic berth
Kebede did not waste his ‘new life’. He easily won the marathon prompting the EAF to give him the all clear to race overseas. He ran two successive 10km races, but his lucky break when he was entered in the Rotterdam Marathon.
“I was excited about running a full marathon outside Ethiopia,” he recalls of his experience. “In fact, I was so excited about being part of the leading group that I forgot to even look at the kilometre marks during the race.”
“When the top runners just took off at 35km, I felt that it was too early and just held back to conserve my energy. I knew something was wrong when I saw the stadium from a near distance. But at the finish, I was shocked to see 2:08 on the clock. I knew that no one apart from Haile [Gebrselassie] had run 2:08 in Ethiopia that year. I was so happy.”
Confirming rise
With many more autumn and spring marathons coming up, Kebede knew that his 2:08.16 might not be enough for a place in the Ethiopian Olympic team.
“Many people did not know me in Ethiopia because I had not run for my country,” he said. “Even after the 2:08, only some coaches and people in athletics knew about me.”
He sealed his place in Ethiopia’s Olympic team in Paris propelling him from fourth to second place in the 2008 Ethiopian lists. Because Deriba Merga run two seconds faster in London the following week, Kebede dropped down a place to third during the Olympic qualification but returned back to second following Gebrselassie’s decision to skip the marathon in Beijing.
“I am living in a dream,” he says. “This is so big and so important for me. I did not obsess about it all my life, although I wanted to run for my country in the Olympics. I am just surprised that it has come early.”
Hopes for Beijing: Nothing but gold
Given his lack of experience in championship-styled marathon racing, one would expect Kebede to be cautious about his chances in Beijing.
But the youngster does not hold anything back when saying he is going for gold. “I am not experienced and it will be my first time running under our national colours,” he says. “But I am confident about my chances. I will be going for gold.”
Kebede’s marathon ambitions do not end there. “I have two big ambitions,” he says. “Apart from Haile, Ethiopia has not had many big marathon runners. I want to become a better marathon runner than I already am.”
How about popularity and the love his people?
“Every time I train at the Addis Ababa stadium, I look at the images of our Olympic champions on Olympic rings. There is a question mark [or a space open for future Olympic champions]. I want my photo instead of the question mark.”
(Associated Press) NEW YORK — Tadesse Tola of Ethiopia upset Patrick Makau of Kenya in the men’s NYC Half-Marathon on Sunday, and Catherine Ndereba of Kenya won the women’s race to solidify her standing as a favorite in next month’s Olympic marathon.
Tola won a sprint to the finish in the 13.1-mile race, crossing in 1 hour, 58 seconds to edge Makau, a half-marathon specialist, by 1 second. U.S. Olympic marathoner Dathan Ritzenhein was third in 1:01:38 in his last competition before the Olympic marathon on Aug. 24 in Beijing.
“I came in really feeling strong the last few miles, and that is a good sign for me leading into Beijing,” Ritzenhein said. “This was a great last test for the Olympics, perfect for me. I am really thrilled with this.”
The 36-year-old Ndereba, the reigning marathon world champion, finished in 1:10:19 to beat Madai Perez of Mexico (1:10:26) and Yuri Kano of Japan (1:10:31). The Kenyan won this race in 2006 and marathon silver at the 2004 Olympics.
ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI — Most of the members of Debre Nazreth St. Mary and St. Gabriel Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church are part of the area’s working class. They are cab drivers, hotel maids, gas station attendants, casino workers and construction laborers.
Two years ago, the congregation lost all its savings — $128,000 — after handing it over to a man who promised to construct a church building for them in Jennings.
The building was never completed, the congregation never got its money back and many of its immigrant-members became disillusioned about life in their new country.
After collecting $140,000 over the last two years for another down payment — this one for an existing building — members of Debre Nazreth will dedicate their new church in Vinita Park today.
“We went through some terrible times,” said the church’s priest, Melakegenet (this is a title, like saying “the Rev.”) Belete D. Yirefu, through a translator. “But we had faith and look what we have achieved. We lost one church and we lost some money, but now we are happy.”
For a decade, the group rented space at other churches for $150 to $800 per month. But some of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church’s rituals — the use of incense, for instance — make it difficult for the congregation to use other church’s space. In some churches, Debre Nazreth, which has 300 members, was asked to hold its service in the basement.
And yet, members are grateful to those churches for taking them in when they had nowhere else to go. “Without those people allowing us to use their churches, we would not be here today,” said Gedlu Metaferia, a member of Debre Nazreth and executive director of the African Mutual Assistance Association of Missouri.
The Ethiopian Orthodox Church traces its roots to the middle of the fourth century, when “a bishop from the Kingdom of Axum was consecrated in Alexandria and began the conversion of Ethiopia,” according to the HarperCollins Encyclopedia of Catholicism. The church split from the Roman Catholic Church at the Council of Chalcedon in the fifth century over a theological disagreement about the true nature of Christ. The rituals and traditions of the church are ancient, and Sunday services can last five or six hours.
In 2004, the Debre Nazreth board began looking for a permanent home. It found a half-built church in Jennings and made a deal with the man who owned it, the Rev. Charles Roberson, pastor of Emmanuel Watertower Christian Ministries church in St. Louis.
Roberson had bought the property in 1996 for $45,000, records show, and began building a church a few years later. But in 2000, after a number of problems with the building, including a collapsed wall due to a faulty foundation, the city issued a stop work order. In 2004, the city told Roberson — who was acting as his own contractor — that he would have to begin the permit process from the beginning to resume building.
That’s when Roberson found the Debre Nazreth board.
The two sides negotiated a price of $305,000 and the board put down $3,000 in earnest money, then cut Roberson a check for another $125,000 in January 2005. The agreement, the board believed, was that Roberson would finish the construction of the church in two months, then he would be paid the remaining $177,000.
Months went by, and no work was done. The city’s stop work order had never been lifted.
Roberson did not respond to an interview request this week, but in 2006, he told the Post-Dispatch that he had done nothing wrong, and that the Debre Nazreth board had pressured him to complete the project without permits and out of sight of the city’s building inspectors.
“We did what they wanted, and when it went sour, they wanted their money back,” Roberson said then.
Debre Nazreth eventually filed a lawsuit, and in July 2006, the city of Jennings condemned the church building. It was demolished in December.
That same month, a St. Louis County judge ordered Roberson to pay Debre Nazreth $15,000, then $2,000 per month until he reaches $143,000 ($125,000 plus interest). The congregation’s attorney, Richard Abrams, said Roberson has paid only $500.
When church members realized they had lost everything, tension grew between the congregation and the board. Some members accused board members of being duped.
But, Yirefu eventually rallied the congregation, and over the last two years, they surpassed their previous down payment collection. “I have a very good congregation and a beautiful church,” he said. “I cannot measure our happiness, joy and blessings.”
At the end of April, the Debre Nazreth community worshipped for the first time in its new building. The members bought it for $540,000, and have, in the last three months, made it their own.
Twenty-six wooden, red-cushioned pews — thirteen on one side for the men, and thirteen on the other side for the women — fill the nave. In the chancel, Ethiopian Christian paintings rest against a lectern.
Church leaders expect 400 to 500 guests and church members for its celebration. A feast of Ethiopian cuisine — spicy vegetables, lamb, meatballs, chicken, lentils and rice — will be served.
In the church’s Fellowship Hall earlier this week, seven women — members of the choir — met to practice. They chanted songs and pounded the table where they sat to mimic the rhythm of the Ethiopian drums.
“You are the almighty,” they sang in Amharic, “for the people who believe in you.”
OTTAWA — Stymied for months in their attempts to gain access to imprisoned Canadian Bashir Makhtal, diplomats were forced to rely on information from “a trusted intermediary,” newly obtained documents show.
At one point last September, Ottawa looked into whether Makhtal would be freed by Ethiopian authorities as part of the African country’s milliennium celebrations — a notion that quickly fizzled.
Hundreds of pages of records released to The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act chronicle a trail of frustrated efforts by foreign affairs officials to assist the former Toronto man languishing behind bars in Addis Ababa for a year and a half.
A candid departmental assessment of recent upheaval in Ethiopia underscores the challenges: “Post-electoral violence, judicial processes that did not fully respect due process, and regional or ethnic exclusion in the political system have not been good for Ethiopian politics,” say “talking points” prepared for Makhtal’s case.
Consular officials recently met with him in prison for the first time. He has not been allowed to see a lawyer and there is continuing confusion over why he is being detained.
Makhtal, a Canadian citizen born in Ethiopia, settled in Canada as a refugee and later moved to Kenya, opening a used-clothing business. He was working in Somalia when Ethiopian troops invaded in late 2006. Makhtal fled back to Kenya, but was detained along with several others at the Kenya-Somalia border.
There have been suggestions Makhtal is of interest to the Ethiopian government due to his grandfather’s involvement in a separatist group in the country’s Ogaden region.
New York-based organization Human Rights Watch says Makhtal was among 34 people deported to Somalia from Kenya in 2007. He was then shipped to Ethiopia.
Officially, the foreign affairs department says Ethiopia has not advised it of any charges against Makhtal.
“Through a trusted intermediary, we have been able to verify Mr. Makhtal’s well-being on several occasions,” a briefing note said last November.
(African Press Agency) — A big bridge which collapsed in northern Ethiopia, about 600 kilometers from Addis Ababa, disconnected land transport with the capital, leaving hundreds of vehicles stranded. The Ethiopian Transport ministry said on Friday evening that the bridge collapsed due to heavy rain in the area.
According to the ministry, the Garlo Bridge, near the town of Gonder collapsed on Thursday evening, disconnecting the area and the rest of the country.
Gonder is one of Ethiopia’s big towns which is regularly visited by tourists to see the area’s various historical sites and castles. The town has an estimated population of over 500,000 people.
“When the bridge collapsed on Thursday evening, there was at least one vehicle on it, and the fate of its passengers is not yet known,” the ministry said.
The ministry also indicated that hundreds of other transports and public buses were stranded around the bridge.
However, the ministry said that it is working to construct an alternative road to allow the hundreds of vehicles stranded in the area to continue their journey.
Garlo Bridge is one of the main and biggest bridges in Ethiopia, built over 50 years ago. The bridge also connects various small towns in the area.
The rainy season in Ethiopia often results in heavy floods in various parts of the country, sometimes resulting in heavy property damage in various regions of the country.
During the 2006 rainy season, for instance, over 600 people died due to heavy floods in various parts of the country while hundreds of thousands people were displaced from their villages and homes.
Ethiopia’s Mahmoud Ahmed and Alemayehu Eshete with Gétatchèw Mèkurya and the Either/Orchestra will perform at the Lincoln Center in New York, August 20, 2008.
