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Derartu Tulu (born March 21, 1972 in Bekoji, Arsi Province, Ethiopia) is an Ethiopian long distance track, road and marathon athlete.
Derartu (ዻራርቱ ቱሉ), a member of the Oromo ethnic group, grew up tending cattle
in the village of Bekoji in the highlands of Arsi Province[1]. 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,
continuing the successful athletic history of the Oromo people.
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 000m behind Xing Huina and her cousin Ejegayehu
Dibaba. (Radcliffe failed to finish.)
Tulu 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 she 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 a third time but did not factor in the
10,000 meter 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
meter 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 that year. 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 ahead of the likes of 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 meters at the Sydney Olympics was a sprint
of note. A devastating display of speed on top of endurance and a
display of her will power.
Achievements
References
Ethiopia
Liz McColgan
Wang Junxia
Joyce
Chepchumba
Banuelia
Mrashani
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