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Tuesday 19 August 2008

Ethiopians VS Ethiopians in Beijing

Tedla Asfaw



What a Friday night is going to be in Beijing ? A battle within family members for gold,silver and bronze for 5,000m. We have Meseret/Messi, Tirunesh/Tiruye, Meselech on one side and we have what I call "Ethiopian Turkeys" Alemitu and Abeye.

Whether we like it or not we are going to see many like this for future and we might lose our best athletes for foreign countries. The question here is do we have the moral high ground to question Alemitu and Abeye running for Turkey?

If some of us have been granted USA, European citizenship why should it be different for Alemitu and Abeye?

Imagine Alemitu and Abeye beating our girls. I heard one woman in D.C was rooting for Abey's race with Tiruye for 10,000m on public because "she is a refugee like many of us".

For the outside world all these are girls who look like the same and behave like the same win or lose and that is indeed true . Shy but tough, go and battle it and I will be with Mesi, Tiruye and Meselech and rooting for sweep.

                                                Go Mesi, Go Tiruye Go Meselech !!!