Tag Archives: Tiki Gelana

Tiki Gelana Named Female World Athlete of the Year

Tadias Magazine
News Update

Monday, February 4, 2013

New York (TADIAS) – Tiki Gelana, 25, winner of the women’s marathon at the London Olympic Games last summer, has been named World Athlete of the Year for 2012 by the Association of International Marathons and Distance Races (AIMS). She was given the award at a ceremony in Japan on Sunday becoming the first Ethiopian woman to receive the coveted long-distance running prize that comes with a Golden Shoe sponsored by the athletic footwear company ASICS.

Previous Ethiopian winners of the prestigious award include her male compatriots Gezahenge Abera in 2000 and Haile Gebrselassie in 2006, 2007 and 2008.

“President Emeritus of AIMS Hiroaki Chosa and AIMS Board Member and Vice President of the Japanese Athletics Federation Dr Keisuke Sawaki presented Gelana with the acclaimed Golden Shoe Trophy during an awards ceremony after she had won the Kagawa Marugame Half Marathon earlier in the day,” reported the International Association of Athletics Federations.

“She started 2012 with a runaway win and personal best of 1:08:48 in the Marugame Half Marathon but that was just a warm-up for a decisive five-minute victory in the Rotterdam Marathon, where she became the fifth woman to break 2:19 for the distance when she ran a national record of 2:18:58.”

Click here to read more at IAAF.org.

In Pictures: Tiki Gelana Wins Gold Medal at the 2012 London Olympic Women’s Marathon



Related:
Tiki Gelana Was Ready For The London Olympic Marathon (Runner’s World)

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2012 in Pictures: Politics, London Olympics and Alem Dechasa

Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff

Updated: Saturday, December 29, 2012

New York (TADIAS) – From the death of former Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to the apparent suicide of Alem Dechasa, and from the surprise results at the London Olympic games to the decisive re-election of President Barack Obama, 2012 has been a year of many lessons and historic transformations.

The televised abuse of Alem Dechasa, the Ethiopian woman that was violently mistreated outside the Ethiopian embassy in Lebanon last March, and her suspicious suicide a few days later, was one of the most watched and heartbreaking stories we covered this year: (In Memory of Alem Dechassa: Reporting & Mapping Domestic Migrant Worker Abuse)

The mysterious absence, illness and death of PM Meles Zenawi was by far the biggest political news of the year in our community. On July 15th the 57-year-old prime minister failed to show up for an African Union meeting that he had religiously attended without absence since the early 90’s. What followed next was several weeks of bizarre secrecy by the Ethiopian government and repeated pronouncements of vague assurances by officials about the status of the PM’s health. Prime Minister Meles Zenawi was eventually declared dead on August 20th and was given a state funeral on September 2nd, 2012 at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa. The confusing summer frenzy also exposed the weakness of the flummoxed political opposition in the Diaspora as disorganized and fractured, neither inspiring confidence nor prepared for public leadership and responsibility.

What was inspiring in 2012, however, was the spectacular performance of our women athletes at the London Olympics. Ethiopia earned seven medals this year, three of them gold, courtesy of Tirunesh Dibaba, Meseret Defar and Tiki Gelana — making the country the leader in Africa on the athletics medal count and globally trailing only the United States, Russia, Jamaica and England.

Here are images from some of the biggest stories of 2012.



Related:
2012 in Review: Ten Arts & Culture Stories (TADIAS)

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In The Footsteps of Derartu, Gete, Fatuma and Gezahegne: Tiki Gelana Was Ready For The London Olympic Marathon

Runner’s World

By Sabrina Yohannes, Published: August 6, 2012

Tiki Gelana remembers watching the Olympics on television and being inspired by her Ethiopian countrywomen, years before she set an Olympic marathon record of 2:23:07 in London.

“I was really moved by the 10,000-meter race in Sydney where Derartu Tulu and Gete Wami ran,” she says. Like the two-time Olympic champion Tulu, Gelana hails from the vicinity of Bekoji in the Arsi area south of Addis Ababa, and it was in a hotel in the town that she joined others watching the 2000 Olympics. “I couldn’t even tell Derartu and Gete apart, and when they showed one of them on the screen, I kept asking, ‘OK, which one is she?'” adds Gelana. But before Tulu and Wami were done, with gold and silver medals in hand, Gelana knew running was what she wanted to do.

Read more at Runner’s World.