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No snow but Ethiopia's ski hope is on a roll

By Barry Malone

Reuters
Sunday, February 7, 2010; 10:52 AM

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Ethiopia's only Olympic skier wheels down a suburban Addis Ababa street on his roller skis, expertly weaving around six donkeys and drawing stares from locals more used to watching runners train.

Robel Teklemariam went to the Turin Winter Olympics four years ago and came 84th out of about 100 cross-country skiers. Now the man whose dreadlocks and bright outfits drew stares in Italy has qualified for the Winter Games again.

"If I'm closer to the winner than I was at the last Olympics then I'll be very happy," Robel said, sweating in the blazing sun after the workout.

"But my real goal now is to get Ethiopians involved in skiing. I don't want to be the first and the last."

Robel has set up a website looking for Ethiopians who may be skiing abroad and are interested in representing their country in competition to contact him.

"For me the greatest thing in the world would be that I don't qualify for the next Olympics because there's another Ethiopian who's faster than me," he said.

When he was eight, Robel's mother, who worked for the United Nations, was transferred to New York and the Ethiopian boy without a word of English found himself in boarding school in upstate New York, surrounded by snow.

"I had a major culture shock," he said. "But skiing was a very big part of the life and culture at the school. So you had no choice. You were on snow."

The child from a country famous for producing world-beating runners like Haile Gebrselassie and Kenenisa Bekele soon found he had talent on the snow.

One day somebody at school joked he should represent Ethiopia at the Olympics.

"That's when it started getting in my head," said Robel. "But when I really took it seriously to the point I knew I had to do it and there was no choice was when I saw the Kenyans ski in the Nagano Olympics in Japan."

MOVED BACK

Robel then approached the Ethiopian Olympic committee who pointed out that there was no Ethiopian ski team. So the fledgling Olympian created an Ethiopian ski association from scratch, drawing up byelaws and finding sponsorship.

His family members now part-time staff the organization.

The 35-year-old moved back to Ethiopia four years ago and, although he works as a ski instructor around the world, he knew he had to find a place to train at home.

"I found this street that had just the right elevation and not too much traffic," said Robel, gesturing to the suburban road that he roller skis up and down six days a week.

"Roller skiing this close to the Olympics is not the ideal thing. Obviously it's much better to be on snow. The one good thing is that in Ethiopia we're at 2700 meters so that helps to give you better endurance."

With his long dreadlocks, ultra high-tech gear and white wrap-around shades, Robel attracts plenty of stares.

"I was here training a little over a week ago and a security guard from one of the houses came out and said 'Isn't it better to do that on snow?'" he laughed.

Robel puts back on his sunglasses and, using his ski poles, pushes off and glides down the sun-drenched hill again, dodging three cars on his way down.

Two men stop him and ask what he's doing. Robel says that he's training for the winter Olympics in Vancouver. "Oh, are you on the Ethiopian ski team?" one asks.

"You're looking at the Ethiopian ski team," replies Robel

Robel Teklemariam to represent Ethiopia at Winter Olympics for the second time

Ethiopian sole Cross-Country Skier Robel Teklemariam will compete once again in the 2010 Winter Olympics to be held in Vancouver, Canada. In 2006, Robel made history by becoming the first athlete to represent Ethiopia in any event at the Winter Olympics.

Roble was born in Ethiopia in 1974 but moved to the United States at age 9, where he learned to ski. In 2006, Ethiopia did not have a National Ski Federation and Robel founded the federation in order to compete in the Olympics.

"There are two things I absolutely love - besides my family - and that's skiing and Ethiopia," he told the BBC's Fast Track programme in 2006.

Robel is currently in Switzerland for a training. Panasonic, the official sponsor of Vancouver 2010, features Robel Teklemariam titled One Dream Five Athletes.

Read a recent article about Robel from CBC Sports

Ethiopian cross-country skier laying down tracks

By Paul Gains, CBC Sports

CBC

Ethiopia's distance runners are world renowned, but given the East African country's climate and negligible snowfall, its winter sport athletes are scarce, to say the least.

One man is doing everything in his power to change that.

Cross-country skier Robel Teklemariam is Ethiopia's only winter Olympian. He will be competing at the Vancouver Games in the men's 15-kilometre race on Feb. 15, aiming to improve upon his 84th-place finish at the Torino Olympics four years ago.

The 35-year-old has a much bigger objective: to set the stage for other Ethiopians to follow in his tracks.

"After Turin, I met a lot of Ethiopian skiers, but so far, none of them are racers," says Teklemariam. "They just go out and enjoy skiing or snowboarding.

"There are over one million Ethiopians living overseas, all over Scandinavia, all over Canada and the United States. I am pretty sure there will be some young kid who will want to race eventually, and that really is my goal at the end of the day."

Teklemariam left Ethiopia with his parents and five siblings in 1983 when he was just nine years old. At the time, his mother worked for the United Nations and asked for a transfer to UN headquarters in New York in order to give her children the opportunity for a Western education.

Learning to ski

The young Teklemariam spoke no English, but when he enjoyed a summer camp experience in Lake Placid, N.Y., his mother enrolled him in boarding school there. It was there that he learned to ski.

"I went to a race, and one of the guys asked my coach where I was from," Teklemariam recalled. "I had no idea who he was, but he said as a joke, 'You should represent Ethiopia one day at the Olympics.' I heard him, but I never took it seriously, but it was always there in my mind."

While at school, he saw a television documentary on legendary Ethiopian marathon runner Abebe Bikila, who won the 26.2-mile event at the 1960 Olympics running in bare feet. Teklemariam, who has always spoken Amharic and retains an Ethiopian passport, said he felt an enormous attachment to his homeland. Inspired, he focused on his own Olympic dream.

Teklemariam progressed rapidly in his sport and was awarded an athletic scholarship to the University of New Hampshire for cross-country skiing. He hoped to compete in the 2002 Salt Lake City Games, but the opportunity for an education superseded his athletic aspirations, so he put his Olympic dream on hold temporarily. After graduation, he soon realized there were other forces at play.

In order to be able to compete in the Olympics, Ethiopia's national Olympic committee had to endorse a ski federation, which at that time didn't exist. When Teklemariam told the Olympic officials of his plan to set one up, they were "dumbfounded at first," he said. Then they got behind his initiative.

With the support of his family, Teklemariam set about fulfilling all the criteria necessary to establish the federation — drawing up bylaws and budgets and seeking sponsorship. Today, the key positions in the organization are held by Teklemariam's family members.

Much of Teklemariam's training and travel expenses are underwritten by Club Med — the global vacation company, which also employs him as a ski instructor.

Doping scare

Preoccupied with his administrative chores for the federation, Teklemariam only qualified for the Torino Games at the 11th hour. But then he hit another obstacle as an anti-doping blood test revealed he had a higher than normal level of hemoglobin — the oxygen-carrying blood protein — and he was ordered to rest for seven days.

Though elevated hemoglobin is not proof of doping, there are always suspicions surrounding such cases. Teklemariam, who claimed the elevated hemoglobin levels were likely the result of living at a high altitude, was allowed to compete eventually.

"The capital of Ethiopia is at an altitude of 3,000 metres [above sea level]," Teklemariam explains. "All my ancestors come from there. Where I train in Aspen, Colo., I trained at an altitude of around 3,000 metres. All my training was done at altitude. The race in Turin was at 1,600 metres altitude. I had no clue about this hemoglobin. I didn't care. I know I am not doing anything wrong.

"The World Anti Doping Agency [WADA] did tests, and it was all negative. I talked to the International Ski Federation [FIS]. I said, 'Listen, I am Ethiopian. I come from high altitude.' The problem is the standard is set on European levels not on Africans' [levels]."

These days, Teklemariam splits his time between various European venues; Aspen, where he is a licensed alpine ski instructor; and his home in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.

Because of the lack of snow in his home country, he cycles and runs in the mountains outside the capital. Roller skiing is impossible because of the heavy traffic and hilly terrain. He also spends time in a local gymnasium, where he has run into some of the country's best distance runners, including three-time Olympic champion Kenenisa Bekele.

'I don't want it to end with me'

Preparations for the 2010 Olympics have not gone as smoothly as Teklemariam would have liked.

When a number of ski competitions this season were cancelled because of a lack of snow, he found himself traveling back and forth across Europe searching for official FIS races in order to qualify for Vancouver. That forced him to cancel a series of planned competitions in Japan.

From now until he leaves for Vancouver, he is based in Marbach, Switzerland.

Teklemariam travels, for the most part, on his own, dragging his equipment bag from train to car to train. On Jan. 8, for example, he took a 15-hour train ride to Oberwiesenthal, Germany, and raced the next day. Then it was on to Innsbruck, Austria, about 600 kilometres away.

"I am really exhausted, but my fitness is OK," he said. "Really, my goal for Vancouver is to improve my time behind the winner and have a better race than in Turin. As far as results, I really want Ethiopia to be a mainstay in winter sports. I don't want be the first and last Ethiopian at the Winter Olympics. I don't want it to end with me."

Though he retains a great deal of optimism, most of his countrymen — those who are aware of him, that is — remain bemused by his pursuit. Nonetheless, he hopes they will watch him on television later this month.

Teklemariam said he was encouraged by a recent encounter with one of Ethiopia's greatest distance runners, Haile Gebrselassie, a two-time Olympic champion in the 10,000 metre and the current world marathon record holder.

"I was flying to Japan and met him on the airplane," Teklemariam recalls. "I went up to him and said, 'My God, you are a legend. I am pleased to meet you. I have also been to the Olympic Games.' He said, 'For what sport?' I said, 'Skiing,' and he said, 'I remember you going to Italy with the skiing. Some day, bring us back the gold'."

Ethiopia - Amane Gobena wins Osaka marathon

Source: Japan Times

OSAKA (Kyodo) Ethiopia's Amane Gobena chopped over a minute off her personal best time to win the Osaka International Women's Marathon on Sunday.

Gobena pulled away from Portugal's Marisa Barros just after the 38-km mark and never looked back, crossing the finish line at a rain-soaked Nagai Stadium in 2 hours, 25 minutes, 14 seconds for victory on her Osaka debut.

Barros clocked 2:25:44 while Mari Ozaki, competing in her first marathon since the 2007 track and field world championships here, took third in a time of 2:26:27. Romania's Lidia Simon was fourth in 2:27:11.

"It was a very difficult and tough course and I am very, very glad to win the race today," said Gobena, whose previous best time of 2:26:53 gave her second place at last year's Los Angeles Marathon.

Nursing a left knee problem, Yukiko Akaba retired from the race with a few kilometers remaining.

Ethiopia - Haile Gebrselassie wins the Dubai Marathon but misses record

Source: The National

DUBAI // Haile Gebrselassie defied an injured back to complete a third successive Standard Chartered Dubai Marathon triumph this morning.

The Ethiopian running great missed out on the $1 million bonus on offer from Dubai Holding for breaking his own world record, as he came home in a time of 2hr 6min 9sec, just over two minutes outside his best.

Gebrselassie, 36, was forced to have intensive physiotherapy ahead of the race just to make the start line, after falling asleep while watching television and waking with a stiff back.

He said: "It was not a good night and when I woke up this morning my back was in a bad position.

"At halfway I decided just to win the race [and forget about the record attempt]. I knew with all the spectators at the finish line, it would be unbelievable. I could not lose in front of them."

Gebrselassie took the $250,000 first prize ahead of Kenya'sEthiopia's Chala Dechase Beyene, and his Ethiopian compatriot Eshetu Wendimu Tsige finished third.

Mamitu Daska Molisa made it an Ethiopian cleansweep of titles as she won the women's race in 2hr 24min 18sec, eight seconds ahead of Aberu Kebede Shewaye.