Eyes on Gelete Burka - a favorite in the Women's 1500m
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| Gelete Burqaa |
Born: January 23, 1986
Kofele, Oromia
Ht: / Wt: 5'5" / 99 lbs
Olympics: None
Event(s): 1,500m |
Gelete Burka, Ethiopia's 1500m star runner, is the favorite to win the Women's 1500m final, but first she has to compete in the semi-final to advance to the final. Meskerem Assefa of Ethiopia will also be competing in the semi-final in Heat 3. According to Runner's World magazine, her biggest competitors will be Russia's Yelena Soboleva and Ethiopian born Maryam Yusuf Jamal [Formerly known as Zenebech Kotu Tola] of Bahrain.
Gelete Burka will be a strong contender in the medal for the Women's 1500m and she is on course to make history by becoming the first Ethiopian woman to win an Olympic medal in 1500m.
Profile of Gelete Burka by NBC
Olympic rookie
Gelete Burka will make her Olympic debut for Ethiopia this summer in Beijing, where she figures to contend for a medal in the women's 1,500m. No Ethiopian woman has ever won an Olympic medal in the event.
Shifting gears
Despite running the third-fastest time in the world (4 minutes, 0.48 seconds) in winning the Prefontaine Classic in 2007, Burka decided to focus instead on the 5,000m at the World Championships in Osaka. The decision may have proven to be a mistake as she wound up finishing 10th in the 5,000m in 15:07.46. A repeat of her season best 1,500m time would have earned Burka bronze at Worlds.
Bold statements
Burka announced her arrival to world in resounding fashion. In April 2005, she made Olympic 5,000m champion Meseret Defar look slow when she beat her by an astounding 18 seconds en route to the 3,000m title at the Addis Ababa Municipal championships. A month later, she won three titles at the Ethiopian Championships: the 1,500m, 5,000m, and 4 x 400m relay, with her win over World champion Tirunesh Dibaba in the longer race earning her athlete of the meet honors.
Cross training
After becoming junior world champion in cross-country in 2005, she moved to the track where she competed at the 2005 World Championships in Helsinki, where she finished eighth in the 1,500m in 4:04.77. A month later, she won the bronze medal in he 3,000m at the IAAF World Athletics Final.
Rapid rise
Burka was 13 when she took part in her first running event, winning a 100m race in an inter-school competition. Her development was so fast that by the age of 16, she finished second in the junior race at the Ethiopian Cross Country championships
Kick start
For the runner who hails from Kofele in the Arsi region of southeast Ethiopia, birthplace of many of Ethiopia's distance runners including Haile Gebrselassie, Derartu Tulu, Kenenisa Bekele, and Tirunesh Dibaba, her first love in sports was rooted in soccer where she played as a top-scoring forward. "A coach who saw me run fast in matches told me to utilize my speed in athletics and hence I decided to take up running," Burka said in an interview with Ethiopian Millennium.