Running in Ethiopia – Bekoji: the small town, home to world class athletes
Following the morning spent at the National Junior Championships in Asela I jumped into a minibus bound for the small town of Bekoji, roughly an hour further south. We gradually climbed through the dusty open plains, dodging all manner of vehicles, animals and people spread along the road. The van pulled up in the bus park, the centre of town was busy. I made my way up the hill to a hotel and called the number for Coach Sintayehu that I had been given in Asela.
An absolute legend in Ethiopian athletics, Sintayehu is the man responsible for honing the talent of the Bekeles, the Dibabas and Derartu Tulu, as well as countless other Oromo athletes. Upon answering my call he quickly offered to come and meet me at the hotel. Within fifteen minutes we were chatting over some tea, with Sintayehu happily telling me some of his story and about his life. The following morning, a Saturday, his squad was set to train at the local track, he said one of his athletes would meet me at the hotel and accompany me to meet the squad.
That evening I jogged out of town into the fields. A nice dirt road meandered past eucalypt groves and cow pastures, children were playing football and yelling out and waving at me as I passed. Bekoji really is a beautiful little town.
A frigid wind blew down from the nearby Bale Mountains as I jogged the backstreets with Efrem, one of Sintayehu’s athletes. Clouds of dust blew around us as we made our way to the local track, “Bekoji Stadium.” It wasn’t even 7am, the sun hadn’t come over the surrounding mountains yet, I was freezing. We entered through the gate to find Sintayehu and a bunch of his athletes off to one side of the track, as we approached he greeted us with his radiant smile.
We began the warmup with fifteen minutes of jogging around the soccer field. Crawling at first, the pace eventually picked up a lot by the final lap (3:15/km). Coach supervised, pacing along one edge of the field, nestling within his Ethiopian national team tracksuit, a ‘Texas Ironman Finisher 2015’ baseball cap atop his head and some fake Real Madrid gloves retaining the sensation within his fingers. After the laps we did a bunch of drills, with a surprising amount of upper body mobility involved as well. A short stretch, and the group changed clothes and put on spikes (if they had them). All gathered around Sintayehu to hear the workout: 3 x 2000m (jog 400m recovery).
The track is rough dirt, the curves at each end don’t quite seem symmetrical. Grass is growing over a significant portion of the home straight. According to my Garmin the distance was about right, in the ballpark of 400m. Sintayehu oversees the training of a vast range of athletes, from children barely out of primary school all the way to some veteran marathoners. We split into five different groups, I jumped in with a group of male 5,000m runners. By the end of the first lap I was off the pace, breathing hard – Bekoji is at 2800m. The group finished each of the three reps in around 6:10, which is quite impressive given the quality of the track and the altitude.
Once all the groups finished up we jogged a few laps together and then gathered in a large circle. One of the men led the group in a series of stretches. After about ten minutes of copying the leader the whole group said a prayer and then walked off the track, through the gates into town.
Originally from the east of Ethiopia, in the region of Harar, Sintayehu initially found himself in Bekoji when he made the move to the town as a physical education teacher at the local high school. He had run in high school, but never took the sport too seriously. However, after some time in Bekoji he began coaching a group of students at the school, with some athletes doing quite well. Eventually athletes such as the Bekeles and Dibabas passed under his tutelage.
Currently one of the groups Sintayehu oversees are athletes from all over Oromia that have come to live in a state-funded camp and train under his watchful gaze. A well-liked and respected figure within the town, we couldn’t walk for more than a few moments before another passer-by would yell out to the coach and come to shake his hand. Sintayehu leads a humble existence in Bekoji, having shied away from the opportunities awaiting him in Addis and abroad to focus on rearing the most talented young Oromians into prime champion material. And with the talent on display at the track here, it’s doubtless that more of his athletes are going to burst onto the scene in the coming years.
