Tag Archives: Yaya Africa Athletics Village

Events, Featured, Podcast

Conversation with Dr. Patricia E. Ortman About ‘Girls Gotta Run’

Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff

Updated: Wednesday, December 1st, 2010

New York (TADIAS) – Early last month we attended a fundraiser for the Girls Gotta Run Foundation (GGRF) in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Organizers had hoped long-distance legend Haile Gebrselassie would be the featured guest speaker. Haile, who had injured himself a day earler at the New York City Marathon, had flown directly home from NYC following the race and could not attend the gathering. The event, co-sponsored and hosted by the Chevy Chase Running Company, took place on Monday, November 8th, 2010 at the Chevy Chase Running Company store.

According to GGRF, portions of the proceeds from the event will help to “subsidize scholarships for girls to attend training at the Yaya Africa Athletics Village, an athletic center in Sululta, Ethiopia, which is presently under construction and in which Mr.Gebrselassie is a partner.” GGRF was established in 2006 to provide funds for athletic shoes, clothes, meals, coach subsidies, and other training-related expenses for disadvantaged Ethiopian girls who are training to be professional runners. One of its sponsored athletes, Dinknesh Mekash Tefer of Running Across Borders, recently broke the women’s course record for the Baxters Loch Ness Marathon in Scotland, winning her first international race.

The following video features Tigist Selam’s conversation with Dr. Patricia E. Ortman, Executive Director of the foundation, as well as footage of additional speakers at the event.

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Ethiopia: The first private Athletics Village to be built in Sululta

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Above: The shareholders of the company include two athletes –
Haile Gebrselassie and Belay Welasha, as well as an Ethiopian
born Canadian businessman and former athlete Joseph Kibur.

The first private Athletics Village to be built in SulultaAddis Ababa – Yaya Africa Athletics Village P.L.C, a new company established in 2009 has begun the construction of a modern athletics village in Sululta, 11 KM outside the city of Addis Ababa.

The project is worth an estimated 80 million birr and will be constructed in three phases. The shareholders of the company include two prominent athletes – Haile Gebrselassie and Belay Welasha, as well as an Ethiopian born Canadian businessman and former athlete Joseph Kibur. The facility will include a running track, hotel, restaurant, gymnasium and sports clinic. It is to be built on 50,000 sq. m. of land and the first phase of the project is expected to be operational by September 2010.

“Haile, who has been making athletics history for the better part of two decades is about to make a new history by building the first private athletics village in the country. I am happy and excited to be
part of this history”, says Joseph Kibur, President and major shareholder of the company. “our aim is to have the facility ready well before the London Olympics so that there will be enough time to
produce new talent and continue Ethiopia’s winning tradition”.

Once the facility is fully operational, selected individuals will be provided with the range of services required for world class athletes. This would include proper diet created by a professional, psychological training, climate controlled training rooms to simulate high humidity and hot conditions, doctors and massage professionals or injury prevention and treatment.

In addition to providing services for local athletes, the hotel in the facility will also be used to house foreign athletes interested in high altitude training. By making the facility a tourist destination it will earn the country foreign currency.

Source: Yaya Africa Athletics Village P.L.C