Derartu Tulu

Derartu Tulu (born March 21, 1972 in Bekoji, Arsi oromo, Ethiopia) is an Ethiopian long distance track, road and marathon athlete.

Derartu  grew up tending cattle in the village of Bekoji in the highlands of Arsi Province.  The same village as Kenenisa Bekele, the male running sensation.

Her cousins Ejegayehu Dibaba, Tirunesh Dibaba and Genzebe Dibaba are all successful international long-distance runners.

In 2004, she declined to enter the New York Marathon, where she would have been likely to face marathon World Record holder Paula Radcliffe, whom she has had a great rivalry with over the years  and focused instead on the Olympic Games, where she won the bronze medal in the 10 000 m behind Xing Huina and her cousin Ejegayehu Dibaba. (Radcliffe failed to finish.)

Derartu is the first Ethiopian woman to win a medal in the Olympic Games. She is also the first woman from Africa to win an Olympic gold medal. Her 1992 Olympic gold medal launched her career. She sat out 1993 and 1994 with a knee injury and returned to competition in the 1995 IAAF World Cross Country Championships where she won gold, having arrived at the race only an hour before the start. She was stuck in Athens airport without sleep for 24 hours^. The same year she lost out to Fernanda Ribeiro and won silver at the World Championships 10,000.

1996 was a difficult year. At the IAAF World Cross Country Championships Tulu lost her shoe in the race and had to fight back to get 4th place. She also finished 4th at the Olympic Games where she was nursing an injury. In 1997 she won the world cross country title for the second time but did not factor in the 10,000 metres World Championships. 1998 and 1999 she gave birth, but came back in 2000 in the best shape of her life. She won the 10,000 metres Olympic gold for the second time (the only woman to have done this in the short history of the event). She had also won the IAAF World Cross Country Championships title for the third time. In 2001 she finally won her world 10,000 track title in Edmonton. This was her third world and Olympic gold medal. She has a total of 6 world and Olympic gold medals.

Her transition to the marathon was rewarded with victories in London and Tokyo Marathons in 2001. She finished 4th at the 2005 World Championships setting her personal best time of 2:23:30. She also won the Portugal Half Marathon in 2000 and 2003, and Lisbon Half Marathon in 2003. In 2009, at the age of 37, she won the New York City Marathon defeating of the likes of Paula Radcliffe,  Lyudmila Petrova and Salina Kosgei.

As of 2009, Derartu Tulu is still running competitively, while most of her old rivals are retired or retiring. She is an icon of the Olympic movement and many will recall her victory lap in 1992 with white South African Elana Meyer, symbolically celebrating an African victory and the end of apartheid on the track. She will also be remembered for her speed. Her 60.3 second-last lap at the end of the 10,000 metres at the Sydney Olympics was a sprint of note.

 Achievements

·         1990

o    World Junior Championships - Plovdiv, Bulgaria.

§  10,000 metres gold medal

·         1991

o    World Cross Country Championship - Antwerp, Belgium.

§  Long course Silver medal

o    All-Africa Games - Cairo, Egypt

§  10,000 metres gold medal

·         1992

o    Summer Olympics - Barcelona, Spain.

§  10,000 metres gold medal

o    IAAF World Cup - Havana, Cuba.

§  10,000 m gold medal

·         1995

o    World Cross Country Championship - Durham, England.

§  Long course gold medal

o    World Championships - Gothenburg, Sweden.

§  10,000 m silver medal

·         1997

o    World Cross Country Championship - Add to: del.icio.us Digg Technorati