This time last year, few people in the athletics world had heard of Lamecha Girma.
Even in his hometown of Assela – the same area that produced stars such as Haile Gebrselassie, Kenenisa Bekele, Tirunesh Dibaba and Derartu Tulu – not many had taken notice of the young teenager who finished a distant fifth in the steeplechase at the Ethiopian U20 Championships in 2018.
Girma had joined the Tirunesh Dibaba Athletics Club a year or two earlier and was training for the 1500m, but club coach Kefyalew Alemu noticed Girma’s height and long stride and suggested he might be good at the steeplechase.
His 8:46.23 run at the Ethiopian U20 Championships was respectable but unremarkable. Getnet Wale and Takele Negate, who finished first and second in that race in 8:35.01 and 8:35.53 respectively, went on to represent Ethiopia at the World U20 Championships in Tampere later that year and both made it on to the podium. Negate took the gold medal, ending a Kenyan winning streak that dated back to the first edition of the World U20 Championships, while Wale earned bronze.
After decades of Kenyan steeplechase dominance, Ethiopian runners were finally starting to make an impact in the steeplechase.
But still, no one knew of Girma.
https://www.worldathletics.org/competitions/olympic-games/news/lamecha-girma-steeplechase-ethiopia