Africa’s first women Olympic Champion Derartu Tulu elected to lead Ethiopian Athletics Federation

Derartu Tulu will now serve Ethiopia as vice-president of the Ethiopian Athletics Federation, alongside Haile Gebreselassie

Ethiopian News
borkena
November 28,2017

As Ethiopian athletics Federation concludes its emergency meeting this week, Derartu Tulu, Africa’s first women and first Ethiopian Olympic Champion in 10000 meters at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 is elected to join the leadership of the federation as vice-president.

The Federation was apparently striving to include more women to the leadership.

Derartu competed for the position along with 17 other females represented from different regions of the country and she was elected with the highest number of votes, according to state media sources. Derartu was represented from Oromia region of Ethiopia.

Derartu, cousin to Tirunesh Dibaba -another great long distance Ethiopian runner, is very much revered among Ethiopians.

In the executive committee member election, Aziza Abdi of Oromia region and Fozia Edris of Afar region competed in two rounds and Fozia Endris is elected to as an executive committee member.

Haile Gebreselassie, the greatest long-distance runner in history, was elected as president of the Athletics Federation last year. He is currently working on Athletics village construction project in Sendafa.

Running has become a popular sport in Ethiopia. In this week’s The Great Ethiopian Run event, as many as 40,000 runners took part.



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