We met an Ethiopian Olympian!

Yesterday we went on a trip out of town to Debre Libanos Monastery and the Portguese Bridge. These are on the road north to Bahir Dar. We had a driver and a tour guide, and the five of us piled in the back of a mini van.

About half an hour out of Addis, our guide told us that we had just passed Kenenisa Bekele, the Olympian long distance runner and champion, and would we like to turn around and go back and try to meet him? There followed a short discussion about who this man was (to our shame, we’d never actually heard of him, but we established that he wasn’t the famed Haile Gebrselassie – known simply as Haile to Ethiopians) and that he was a world and Olympic champion. We decided that YES, we’d love to go back to meet him!

So our driver turned around and went back. We got out and went across the road to where a house was being built – Kenenisa’s new home. He had come to inspect the building progress. There were a few young guys standing around in running gear, and our guide went over to them and explained that we would like to meet Kenenisa. One of the men was his brother and he asked us to wait while Kenenisa finished his inspection.

Eventually, he came over to us. We shook his hand and congratulated him on his achievements (still not really having any idea who he was!) and had a quick couple of photos with him. I cropped out the rest of the family for privacy reasons.

What a surprising thing to have happen – we certainly didn’t plan on meeting an Olympian! The closest that we have come to such sporting fame before is that my elder daughter has met Liz Ellis (ex-captain of the Australian netball team), and my younger daughter has an ex-Olympic coach for gymnastics.

We met an Ethiopian Olympic champion!