Lamecha Girma Still Battling Concussion Symptoms, Hoping to Return to Racing This Month After Horrific Olympic Fall

On the night of August 7, 2024, steeplechase world record holder Lamecha Girma of Ethiopia entered the Olympic steeplechase final seeking a global gold medal that had proven particularly elusive. As an 18-year-old in 2019 Girma had come just .01 shy of winning the title at the World Championships in Doha, his first major championship appearance. But he was forced to settle for silver on that night, which would soon become an all-too-familiar feeling. Girma claimed silver again at the 2021 Olympics. And the 2022 Worlds. And the 2023 Worlds, despite setting a world record of 7:52.11 earlier that year. He even added a silver in the flat 3,000 meters at the World Indoor Championships in 2022.

So when Girma saw unheralded American Kenneth Rooks threatening to run away with gold with 250 meters remaining that night in the Stade de France, he did something about it. Girma used his left arm to brush past Kenya’s Simon Koech into fifth place, and his right arm to push by reigning Olympic champion Soufiane El Bakkali. Girma was up to second, quickly closing the gap the gap on Rooks, as he came to the barrier at the end of the back straight with a tremendous amount of speed. Too much, it turned out.

Girma clipped the barrier with his right knee, which jerked the rest of his body back toward the barrier and caused his head to hit the purple track with a violent thud. As El Bakkali sprinted away to run down Rooks for gold, Girma lay face down on the track, motionless. Within minutes, he was fitted with a neck brace and stretchered out of the stadium. It was one of the scariest moments of the Games.

Girma, 24, would wind up spending the next three days in a French hospital being treated for a concussion before returning home to Addis Ababa. He has still not raced since the incident.

“Obviously it was a very, very hard fall,” Girma’s agent Hussein Makke told LetsRun.com on Monday. “It was much more than what we saw from distance…It took him a while to recover from it. He visited a number of doctors in Europe.”

In a typical year, Girma will take a month or so off from training after the track season ends in September and return to practice sometime in November before racing once or twice in the indoor season. Because of the concussion, Makke said, Girma was unable to train last fall and did not return to training until January (Girma was also married during that month).

Makke said that Girma is now in “good condition and good shape,” but some aftereffects of his fall still linger, nine months later.

“He’s still feeling parts of the concussion coming to him when he reaches certain high speeds and levels,” Makke said. “…He’s not normal yet. He’s able to train and he’s put in good workout sessions, but at such a point, a combination of intensity and other things, he feels some dizziness and some things.”

As a result, Girma has not rushed his comeback, skipping the first two Diamond League steeplechases of the year in Xiamen and Keqiao. Makke said the plan is for Girma to race at some point in May, barring any setbacks.

Girma is an accomplished runner at other distances — he holds the Ethiopian record in the 1500 meters (3:29.51) and held the world indoor record in the 3,000 (7:23.81) until Grant Fisher broke it in February — but Makke said his focus will remain the steeplechase in 2025.

“We all witnessed [the fall], but he’s mentally strong,” Makke said. “He’s ready. He just wants to be as competitive as he has been. That’s why he backed off from [the Chinese Diamond Leagues]. He’s planning to come back and run his race when he’s close to 100%.”

Talk agbout Girma’s comeback on our world-famous fan forum / messageaboard: Where’s Lamecha Girma? Jonathan Gault has the scoop.