Tsehay Gemechu

Tsehay Gemechu
Personal information
Full nameTsehay Gemechu Beyan
NationalityEthiopian
Born (1998-12-12) 12 December 1998
Sport
SportAthletics
EventLong-distance running
Achievements and titles
Personal bests
Medal record
Women's athletics
Representing  Ethiopia
African Games
2019 Rabat 10,000 m
World Cross Country Championships
2019 Aarhus Senior team

Tsehay Gemechu (born 12 December 1998)[1] is an Ethiopian long-distance runner. She finished fourth in the 5000 metres at the 2019 World Athletics Championships. Gemechu won the 10,000 metres at the 2019 African Games.

Gemechu is currently serving a four-year ban set to end in November 2027 for an anti-doping rule violation relating to abnormalities in her Athlete Biological Passport.[2][3]

Career

Tsehay Gemechu twice won the Delhi Half Marathon (2018, 2019), setting new consecutive course records. She placed second at the Great Ethiopian Run, a 10 km road race in Addis Ababa, in 2018.

In 2019, she won the 10K Valencia Ibercaja, setting a new national record of 30:15 and slicing 15 seconds off Tirunesh Dibaba's previous best.[4] She competed in the senior women's race at the World Cross Country Championships held in Aarhus, Denmark in March of that year, finishing in sixth place and helping Ethiopia take team title.[5] In August, Gemechu took victory in the 10,000 metres at the African Games in Rabat, Morocco, and in October, placed fourth in the 5000 metres event at the Doha World Championships in Qatar.[1]

Gemechu received a four-year ban in October 2024, backdated to the provisional suspension issued in November 2023, for an anti-doping rule violation indicated by abnormalities in her Athlete Biological Passport. All her results from March 2020 onwards were disqualified.[6][3]

From 2020 to 2023 Gemechu had competed in various events, including the 2020 Tokyo Olympics 10,000 metres, the Copenhagen and Lisbon Half Marathons, the Istanbul Half Marathon, the Antrim Coast Half Marathon, and both the Amsterdam and Tokyo Marathons. However, all her results from March 2020 onwards, including these performances, were subsequently disqualified due to the anti-doping rule violation.

Personal bests

References

  1. ^ a b "Tsehay GEMECHU – Athlete Profile". World Athletics. Retrieved 1 January 2021.
  2. ^ Dickinson, Marley (30 November 2023). "Ethiopian marathon star Tsehay Gemechu suspended for anti-doping violation". Canadian Running. Retrieved 15 September 2024.
  3. ^ a b Adams, Tim (31 October 2024). "Tsehay Gemechu banned for four years for doping". Athletics Weekly. Retrieved 1 November 2024.
  4. ^ "Gemechu smashes Ethiopian 10km record in Valencia". World Athletics. 13 January 2019. Retrieved 5 October 2022.
  5. ^ "Senior women's race" (PDF). World Athletics. Archived (PDF) from the original on 27 June 2020. Retrieved 27 June 2020.
  6. ^ "Ethiopian marathoner Gemechu suspended for doping". Athletics Weekly. 30 November 2023. Retrieved 1 December 2023.