Behind Tulu's Triumph

Sabrina Yohannes writes for Running Times

The most discomfort Derartu Tulu experienced on the morning of the 2009 New York City Marathon was after she crossed the finish line in first place and took part in TV interviews and the medal ceremony in her shorts. The bag with the rest of her gear had been temporarily misplaced. Noting her discomfort, security guard Ed Cardona offered her the long black coat he was wearing over his black suit and she gratefully accepted. The garment that fit snugly on his 225-pound build dwarfed her 101–pound frame.


Derartu Tulu overcame a lot more than a world-class field to win in New York.

“It was cold at the start of the race, but nothing like what I felt afterwards,” says Tulu, who took the wind on the course in stride and skirted around Salina Kosgei and Yuri Kano when they fell early in the race. “I very nearly fell myself, but by the grace of God, I was spared,” says Tulu, who otherwise looked comfortable and strong throughout her race. “The pace was never fast. So I was comfortable.”

The same cannot be said of her last three years after she gave birth to her daughter Ruth in the fall of 2006. Though her perseverance eventually paid off, the two-time Olympic 10,000m champion, who had made thrilling comebacks in the past, had not competed at all in 2006 and 2007 and registered mostly discouraging results since. “During that time I struggled a great deal even to lose weight and to regain my endurance,” says Tulu.

The mother of an 11-year old daughter Tsion, and the adoptive mother of four children, three of them orphans and one with family in the Bekoji region Tulu hails from, she had stopped training early in 2006. “The culture doesn't really allow you to run while pregnant, and I don't think that I would be able to do that either,” she says. That was followed by a difficult childbirth by Caesarean section and long recovery. “I had gained up to 18 kilos [about 40 pounds], and it took me a great deal of time to lose that weight,” says Tulu, who considers 45 kilos (99 pounds) her ideal weight. “I was 45 kilos when I ran in Sydney, 45 kilos when I ran in Athens,” says the 2000 gold and 2004 bronze Olympic 10,000m medalist, who was a younger and leaner 20-year-old weighing just 42 kilos (92.4 pounds) when she took her first Olympic gold medal in Barcelona in 1992. “Now I’m 46 kilos, so I have one more to lose,” she says.

Her first race back was a second-place finish in Madrid in April 2008, but in 2:36.32, way off her 2005 personal best of 2:23:30 at the Helsinki world championships, where she finished just out of the medals in fourth place. “After giving birth to my second child, I've run three marathons,” says Tulu. “I ran in [Madrid], Tokyo, and Nagano. Two of them I finished in 2 hours and 36 minutes, and one of them in 2:34. So when things like that happen, sometimes you start to give up hope.”

Among the things giving her encouragement was the reaction from fans in Addis Ababa who saw her training. “They would ask me, ‘Where have you been? We long to see you back again’,” says Tulu, who brought Ethiopia its first Olympic gold in 12 years after the nation boycotted the 1984 and 1988 Games, and has been revered in Ethiopia since, along with Haile Gebrselassie. “I used to be surprised, thinking there are so many other runners, how are they still expecting me to accomplish things?” Tulu continues. “But they would say to me, ‘We always want to see you and Haile running again and doing great things again.’ And I realized how much they still expect from me. So I started to tell them, ‘Well then, wait a little while for me. I may be able to accomplish something yet. I hope that I can do something good this year.’ ”

Tulu’s own track record was also one that inspired belief in longevity and comebacks. After becoming the first black African woman to win Olympic gold in 1992, she had taken fourth at the Atlanta Olympics but triumphed stunningly in Sydney and medaled yet again in Athens after leading an Ethiopian sweep of the medals at the 2001 world championships, all over 10,000m. At the world cross country championships, she had taken gold in 1995 and 1997 and then returned to take gold in 2000. In the marathon, she won London and Tokyo in 2001, and was third in New York in 2005. Although she took global medals or had notable results in several other years, there have been gaps in Tulu’s career. “I have periods of my life where I have interrupted running due to child birth,” she says. “In addition, I've also had some leg injuries. So I do feel that I have lost some time … I feel that out of the 20 years that I've been competing, I have run, perhaps, half of that.”

With the passing years, Tulu found that she has lost some of her strengths, but others have improved. “As you continue running over the years, you learn a lot, and you gain experience from your training, from your competitions,” she says. “And if you do everything that you set your mind on and if you're determined and you run from the heart, your legs may not be as fast as they used to be, but your mind may be faster. There are things that you have to change with time. For example, I can't do quite the speed work that I used to be able to do, so I have to reduce the speed and listen to my body as I work.”

Tulu listened to her body but in September her results spoke even louder in telling her she should tackle another major marathon. “I ran a Philadelphia half marathon and for 21k, I ran 1 hour and 10 minutes, and that told me that I am OK,” says Tulu, whose personal best is 1:07:03 run in 2001. “In my last 21K, I ran 1:15,” says Tulu, who had been discouraged by her 1:14.57 in 17th place at the Ras al Khaimah in February 2009. But after that 1:10:33 for fourth in Philadelphia, she set about preparing for what turned out to be her triumphant return to the top spot at a World Marathon Majors venue. “I decided to run here,” says Tulu. “So since then I went back home and I trained really hard.

“I didn't really expect to win here, but I did know that I could be a good competitor and I planned to fight until the very end,” she said after taking the New York title in 2:28:52. “It turned out it was God's will that I should win, and I am extremely happy.”

“I still have a lot of work to do because 2:28 is not a good time,” she says. “But after all of the struggle I went through these last three years, I am delighted to have managed this.”

Tulu may tackle the RAK half marathon again in 2010, as well as some other road races between December and February, such as the Sanyo road race in Japan. She has not made plans for her next few marathons but is targeting a major one further down the road. “I’m planning to keep running until the London Olympics,” she says. “I hope to be able to bring another victory to my country.” Her resume suggests that outcome cannot be ruled out, and her adoring fans will no doubt provide encouragement along the way. “The Olympics are three years away, and let alone three years, you don’t know what will happen in three months’ time, but that is my goal,” says Tulu.

For now, though, not even the cool temperatures that kept her briefly hugging a blanket and a borrowed coat could erase her trademark brilliant smile as she stopped and posed for pictures and praise after Sunday’s victorious finish. An even warmer reception awaits her in Addis Ababa, from where she already received the first waves of congratulations when she spoke to family and friends by phone on Sunday. “I know that all Ethiopians will be very happy with this and will greet me with great joy,” she says.