NYRR Media Center

Gotytom Gebreslase won gold at the World Athletics Championships last year in Eugene, Ore., setting a championship-record time of 2:18:11 to win by nine seconds. Following the race, her tears were of both joy and sadness; she was unable to call her parents in Ethiopia after her victory because phone communication was disconnected to parts of the country due to the war between the Tigray People’s Liberation Front and the Ethiopian federal government. Her parents live in the village of Mai Keyah and had not been able to communicate with her in more than a year.

Four months later, Gebreslase made her TCS New York City Marathon debut, finishing in third place in 2:23:39.

Then this past August, she took silver at the World Athletics Championships Marathon in Budapest for her second consecutive podium appearance, as Ethiopia finished one-two in the race.

Prior to making the podium at a World Championships, Gebreslase finished third at the Tokyo Marathon and won the Berlin Marathon in her marathon debut. Her time in Berlin was the eighth-fastest women’s time in the history of the race.