A 10km road race on Sunday 3 November 2002, Addis Ababa

We took part in the second Great Ethiopian Run in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia.

The start of the Great Ethiopian Run 2002

Sixteen thousand runners took part (there were more than 20,000 in the fourth running of the race in 2004) – making this the largest run in Africa. The run was to raise money for AIDS awareness, and for training facilities for Ethiopian athletes. The main organiser was former GB athlete, Richard Neureukar, whose wife Gail works as a doctor in one of the hospitals in Addis Ababa.

Owen & Grethe after the runThe high altitude (Addis is 2,700m above sea level) and hot temperatures meant that times were slower than sea level, and Ethiopian athletes were at an even greater advantage than usual.

The pictures barely do justice to the scene. The streets were covered in a yellow wave of runners wearing their race T-shirt in the beautiful yellow, red and green colours of the Ethiopian Flag.

It seemed that most of the runners were setting out to break the world record by trying to keep up with the elite runners at the start. There was a great atmosphere, from the start and all along the route, with lots of singing and chanting from all the runners, and great crowd support.

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Owen Barder and Grethe Petersen

2 Comments

George Michuki · May 20, 2016 at 5:01 pm

Marathons are great social events. They present opportunities for human beings to demonstrate the essence of humanity: common purpose and togetherness

In the presence of greatness · November 21, 2009 at 10:09 am

[…] couple of thousand more!) will be taking part in a this 10km race at 2,500 metres above sea level. G and I ran it in 2002 and again in […]

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