Derartu Tulu after her marathon victory in New York (© Getty Images)
New York, USASeventeen years after the Barcelona Olympics, seeing Derartu Tulu's name at the head of the results column may seem like a return to the past.
On the day after the 2009 ING New York City Marathon, race director Mary Wittenberg introduced her women's champion, Derartu Tulu, as "A towering figure not only in the world of running, but among women leaders." It may have sounded like an overstatement for any other runner, but Tulu herself provided the evidence when asked about the reception her victory would receive at home.
With a broad smile, Tulu explained, "When I was training, and a lot of Ethiopians back home would see me, they would ask me: ‘Where have you been? We would love to see you back’. I asked them, 'There are so many other runners, what do you expect from me?'"
"They say they long to see me and Haile doing great things again," she went on. "I realized how much they still expect from me. So I started to tell them: 'Wait a little while for me and I may be able to accomplish something.'"
One of the pioneers
Tulu's race in New York came more than 17 years after she first gained the world's attention. In the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, at the age of 20, Tulu became the first Ethiopian woman to win an Olympic gold medal in the 10,000m final. She defeated South African Elana Meyer in the first Olympics after South Africa's return from their apartheid-era ban, and when Tulu waited for Meyer beyond the finish line and the pair took their lap of honour together, it created one of the lasting images of Olympic history.
Like Ethiopia's other Olympic champions - Miruts Yifter and Abebe Bikila among them - Tulu's picture went up on the national stadium in Addis Ababa. Tulu recognized that this stature gave her both a unique voice in her country and the responsibility to use it. In the course of the next Olympiad, Tulu agitated for change in the Ethiopian federation and, indirectly, encouraged more Ethiopian girls to run. (One notable girl who grew up in Tulu's reflected glow was her young second cousin Tirunesh Dibaba.) She continued competing and won silver at 10,000m at the 1995 World Championships in Goteborg, Sweden.
Interviewed for an American running magazine in those days, Tulu was paired with another Olympic pioneer, 1984 gold medal marathoner Joan Benoit Samuelson, though Tulu's stature in Ethiopia probably outstripped that of Samuelson in the USA. (Samuelson finished some twenty minutes and sixteen places behind Tulu on Sunday.)
Tulu followed Samuelson to the marathon in 1997 on the Boston marathon course which made Samuelson's reputation, but managed only a fifth-place finish in 2:30:28 as her countrywoman Fatuma Roba, a new Ethiopian marathon star with her 1996 Olympic win, began a three-year streak in Boston.
First comeback
After a 1998 maternity break when daughter Tsion was born, Tulu returned to the Olympic track in Sydney, winning another 10,000m gold, and when that was followed by a London marathon win in 2001 and World Championships 10,000m gold in Edmonton it looked like Tulu had returned to dominance. She was dominant on all surfaces, starting her championship run with the 2000 World Cross Country championship.
"It's hard to compare victories," Tulu said on Monday in New York. "Cross country is how I first went out of Ethiopia to compete. Track is where you first saw me. I love all the events in which I've competed."
Tulu continued running marathons while struggling with injuries and inconsistencies in the following years. High points including finishing third in New York City in 2005, after a PB 2:23:30 at the Helsinki World Championships, where she finished fourth. She took bronze at 10,000m in the Athens Olympics. Then, in 2006, she had her second daughter, Ruth.
"In Ethiopia, unlike in the west, we stop running at the beginning of pregnancy," said Tulu on Tuesday. "Because of this, and because of injuries, I have had periods of interrupted training. I do feel that I have lost time. Of the 20 years I have been running, I have run perhaps 10 because of these interruptions." As a result, Tulu has sometimes seemed to disappear from view. The other side of the coin, perhaps, is that Tulu has been able to extend her career years beyond when she might have retired.
Second comeback
Though Tulu certainly put in the work, Sunday's race in New York played directly into her hands. "Even if there had been 10 women in the pack at 40km, I was still confident I could pass them. I know I have that speed from the track, from the high speed and hard work we did."
Tulu's return to fitness after the birth of Ruth came with some adjustments, though.
"There are things you have to change," she said.
"I had to reduce speed work and listen to my body more. But as you grow older, you learn a lot and gain experience. If you are smart, your legs may be fast but your mind is faster."
The open question is how much longer Tulu can extend this second comeback, though she herself has few doubts now after her confidence-building victory in New York. With four previous appearances (including the 2001 victory) at the London marathon, she was asked, would she be in London in April of 2010?
"Oh, I don't know about next year," she replied. "When I said I wanted to run the marathon in London, I meant the Olympics."
A towering figure indeed: Tulu's pioneering influence could then stretch over 20 years of athletics.
Parker Morse for the IAAF
