News16 Sep 2003


Mamo Wolde honoured in Spain

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Mamo Wolde monument in Elgoibar (© Zigor Diez)

Citizens from Elgoibar, a small town in Basque country, Northern Spain packed the Instalaciones Sports Mintexta on the afternoon of Friday 12 September 2003, as the town´s mayor Marivi Agirregomezkorta inaugurated a monument to Ethiopian running legend Mamo Wolde.

Ethiopia's 1968 Olympic marathon champion Mamo Wolde, who died on Sunday 25 May 2002 at the age of 70 after a long illness, was a former army captain who became a sporting hero in Ethiopia after winning the marathon gold at the 1968 Mexico Olympics and the bronze at the 1972 Munich Games.

As well as his achievements at the Olympics, Wolde is fondly remembered in Elgoibar after winning the annual cross country race Juan Muguerza Cross International in 1963, 1964, 1967, and 1968.

Jose Miguel Azkoitia, President of Mintxeta Atletismo Team, commented that Wolde was the first African runner to run in Elgoibar when he took on the best runners in 1963. “Like many places in the world, Elgoibar nowadays lives in a very global, international environment. But in the 1960s, the thinking was quite narrow, so seeing the first African runner [Mamo Wolde] beating the others in Elgoibar was therefore a sensation at the time.”

The Wolde monument, which is a 1.80m high aluminium statue, now resides next to another of Juan Muguerza, a local runner who was a Spanish champion in the 1930s. 

This is the second monument inauguration in the past four months for the Ethiopian star. Ethiopian philanthropist and athletics supporter Abeselom Yihdego funded the construction of a large statue for Wolde that now stands proudly next to that of Wolde’s friend and colleague 1960 and 1964 Olympic marathon gold medallist Abebe Bikila at the St Joseph Church in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Juan Muguerza Cross Internacional has been held in January every year for the past 60 years and is now considered an ideal preparation for runners before the World Cross Country Championships. Famous names have graced the circuit here in the past four decades with the likes of Haile Gebrselassie, Kenenisa Bekele, Mamo Wolde and Edith Masai running in Elgoibar before going on to grab world or Olympic honours. Kenenisa Bekele won last year's race two months before picking up his second successive world cross-ountry double in Lausanne.

The recognition is significant given that Wolde had spent most of the past nine years in jail, accused of taking part in the murder of a 15-year-old boy during the regime of Marxist dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam, but always maintained his innocence.

Wolde was found guilty of the crime in January 2002 and sentenced to six years in prison, but was released because he had already spent nine years behind bars.

On returning to his wife and three children in Addis Ababa, Wolde – who suffered from lack of hearing, bronchitis, bad eyesight and liver pain – beamed with delight and said he accepted the court's verdict with grace, even though he was not the one who killed the boy.

"Thank God, I am free at last," he said at the time. "I bear no malice towards anyone."

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