Derartu Tulu (born March 21, 1972 in
Bekoji,
Arsi oromo,
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. 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
10 000 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...
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