FEATURE: Ethiopian Barega and his journey from agriculture to world champion runner
Ethiopian Barega’s unlikely journey to running stardom
JOHANNESBURG, May 11 (ANA) – Ethiopian youth world champion Selemon Barega may be from a country renowned for its long distance runners, but the Southern Region of the East African nation – Gurage – is a world away from competitive international sports.
The inhabitants of Gurage are regarded as hard-working people, but normally in agriculture or business. Despite this, Barega rose to become a world champion in the men’s 5000m at the Under-20 World Championship and men’s 3000m at the Under-18 World Championship.
“In general, my national group is known by trade, they focus on commerce,” Barega said. “The Gurage nation does not know anything about sport, but the Gurage people, if they start to work at anything, in any field, they become successful. They focus on work.”
Barega, now aged 21, grew up with seven siblings with no sporting background. His parents were both farmers and encouraged him to focus on his education. The family also did not own a television or radio and were not aware of the Ethiopian domination of long distance running around the time Barega was approaching adolescence.
Despite any real encouragement, Barega began to achieve success in local school competitions before a victory in a zonal race, which unlocked new doors for the blossoming athlete.
Barega joined a running project – common pathways to clubs in Ethiopia – where he began receiving a small salary which covered his accommodation and extremely basic living expenses. These projects, though, do not offer financial incentives for top performances and therefore athletes with great potential can often slip through the cracks.
Barega joined the Southern Police Club at around the same time as he was offered to join the national team.
“In our area, there was no one running,” he explained. “My family members were not fans of running; their aim was only to push me to learn, so even when I joined the club they were not happy. It was not until I began receiving medals that they started to encourage me.”
In 2015, before going off to win at the World Athletics Under-20 Championships in Poland, Barega moved to Addis Ababa, where he learned the history of Ethiopian athletics. “When I came to Addis then I heard stories about Kenenisa (Bekele) and saw his videos. I admired him for his speed,” he remembers.
Barega’s time of 13:21 at the age of 16 shocked the running world and began to inspire a local movement in his hometown. Now young boys all cite him as an inspiration to begin running.
Throughout the next several years Barega’s times continued to drop, but he developed racing tactics that have led to countless victories and more importantly, racing conditions in which he always finds himself vying for a top spot.
Barega has several registers of speed and seems to effortlessly shift gears in the final laps of a race without his form breaking down. He’s a smooth runner, and attributes this to his focus.
“Everybody is working hard here,” he said. “The runners who are good in training sometimes do not perform well in competitions. The big thing is you have to give focus for your work.
“For example, with me, I don’t think about any other work. I give everything to sport. All of my thoughts are for sport. Also, when it comes to races, sometimes others get scared.
“But I don’t get scared. If I run good, I thank god then I accept and do work, and if I don’t win, I see myself weaknesses and I don’t get angry. I say, because I work hard, I win, but still, it’s not enough. I think that I can do more than this.”
In the future, Barega has big plans for how he would like to give back to the Gurage people, who he sees as having a lot of potential but lacking infrastructure and materials. “There is one club there, but they don’t even have a track,” he said. “Up until now I have not really supported them financially, only giving them morale. But if I can do something more for that area in the future like giving them clothes and facility, I will be happy.”
But for now, Barega remains singularly focused on his training, with lofty goals about winning more medals for Ethiopia. He is currently coached by Hussein Shibo, who has helped bring athletes like Derartu Tulu, Haile Gebrselassie, Fatuma Roba, Kenenisa Bekele, and others, to global prominence. Within Ethiopia, Shibo is known as a “hunter,” because he’s a fierce recruiter of both talent and medals. He’s known for adapting to athletes’ training strengths and styles, rather than the other way around.
He remains focused on the 5000m and 10,000m races, with an eye looking to the roads for the future. But the 5000m and 10,000m, he has explained, are central to the culture of running in Ethiopia. And winning races are his central concerns. But for Barega, what remains crystal clear is no matter which event he runs, he will work extremely, exceptionally, hard. – African News Agency (ANA), Editing by Michael Sherman