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Abe Abraham
- Senior Member
- Posts: 14412
- Joined: 05 Jun 2013, 13:00
-
Abe Abraham
- Senior Member
- Posts: 14412
- Joined: 05 Jun 2013, 13:00
Re: Ethiopian runner missed 5000-meter, got arrested for 8 months
Running talent developed in military service
Although Yifter (ምሩጽ ይፍጠር ) didn't really get interested in running until he was in his twenties, he proved good at it early on. "In my home environment in Tigray, as a child, I was chasing the monkeys with other boys. I would run so fast that my parents were afraid I would have a heart attack.
Later, when I became successful in running , they got a more positive, more enthusiastic view of my sport." Before that, however, Yifter had to help earn money, "because of the poverty in our family. I rarely had enough to eat." In his youth he worked as a truck driver for various companies.
At the time, he was often on the verge of giving up running. The turning point came when the well-known coach Nigusse Ruba came to Asmara( ኣስመራ), the present-day capital of Eritrea(ኤርትራ), in 1968, shortly before the Olympic Games in Mexico, where Yifter then lived and where he often ran races against school children, "just like that, for no particular reason, just because I liked to run." Ruba saw him running and persuaded him to come to Addis Ababa and join the Ethiopian Air Force, where his talent as a long-distance runner continued to develop.
Although Yifter (ምሩጽ ይፍጠር ) didn't really get interested in running until he was in his twenties, he proved good at it early on. "In my home environment in Tigray, as a child, I was chasing the monkeys with other boys. I would run so fast that my parents were afraid I would have a heart attack.
Later, when I became successful in running , they got a more positive, more enthusiastic view of my sport." Before that, however, Yifter had to help earn money, "because of the poverty in our family. I rarely had enough to eat." In his youth he worked as a truck driver for various companies.
At the time, he was often on the verge of giving up running. The turning point came when the well-known coach Nigusse Ruba came to Asmara( ኣስመራ), the present-day capital of Eritrea(ኤርትራ), in 1968, shortly before the Olympic Games in Mexico, where Yifter then lived and where he often ran races against school children, "just like that, for no particular reason, just because I liked to run." Ruba saw him running and persuaded him to come to Addis Ababa and join the Ethiopian Air Force, where his talent as a long-distance runner continued to develop.