Zersenay Tadese

Although he was wearing ill-fitting shoes and was somewhat puzzled at hearing a starting gun for the first time, he managed to finish in 30th place with a time of 36 minutes and 37 seconds.

However, he remained some distance off the winner Kenenisa Bekele.

He competed at his first IAAF World Half Marathon Championships in May of that year, finishing just outside the top twenty runners with a time of 1:03:05.

He competed on the track at the African Athletics Championships, taking sixth place in the 10,000 metres race in Radès, Tunisia, rounding off a modest debut year.

Zersenay Tadese Habtesilase (Tigrinya: ዘርእሰናይ ታደሰ; born 8 February 1982) is an retired Eritrean long-distance track and road running athlete.

His first foray into the international athletics circuit came in 2002, when he attended the 2002 IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Dublin.

The 2003 season saw Zersenay establish himself as an emerging force in cross country: he broke into the top ten at the 2003 IAAF World Cross Country Championships, and finished in the top three in all of his six races in Europe that winter.

A 5000 metres win at the KBC Night of Athletics brought Zersenay an Eritrean record of 13:11.07, and a place at the IAAF World Championships in Athletics.

At the 2003 World Championships, he improved his record further to 13:05.57 and finished in eighth place in the 5000 metres final.

More improvements came at the World Half Marathon Championships in Vilamoura, Portugal, where he recorded a personal best of 1:01:26 to finish in seventh position.

His bronze medal in the 10,000 metres at the 2004 Athens Olympics made him the first ever Eritrean Olympic medallist, and his 20-km title at the 2006 IAAF World Road Running Championships also made him the country's first athlete to win at a world championship event.

He does not use a sprint finish to win races; his strategy relies on a combination of efficient running and fast pace setting.

He is a four-time Olympian (2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016).

The 2004 season represented a breakthrough for Zersenay and he established himself as a serious contender in distance running.

He signed a contract with Adidas Spain and brought the team victory at the European Clubs' Cross Country Cup in February.

The following month he bettered his previous showings at the World Cross Country Championships with a sixth-place finish.

With the help of teammates Yonas Kifle and Tesfayohannes Mesfen, among others, he took Eritrea to third position in the team competition – the first time the country had reached the podium at a world cross country event.

Two months later he finished second in the 10 km Great Manchester Run; his time of 27:59 was five seconds behind winner Craig Mottram.

He took to the track in June at a meeting in Gavà, Spain, and recorded another national record, this time in the 10,000 m with a time of 27:32.61.

The peak of his season came at the 2004 Athens Olympics, where he became the first person in Eritrean sporting history to win an Olympic medal.

Zersenay took the bronze in the 10,000 metres at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece behind Kenenisa Bekele, and Sileshi Sihine.

His performance of 27:22.57 represented a dramatic improvement as he had beaten his previous best by ten seconds, despite unfavourably hot conditions.

Zersenay refused to politicise his medal win behind his Ethiopian counterparts, stating: "we have always been friends with the Ethiopians. Now we are a nation...I can say I am very happy."

The Eritrean-born runner Meb Keflezighi, representing the United States, won silver in the marathon a few days later, highlighting the country's improving standards.

Zersenay ("Tadese" is his father's name) has found most of his success in the half marathon, with four consecutive victories in the World Half Marathon Championships from 2006 to 2009 (with a 2006 20 km edition), a silver medal in 2010 and a fifth title in 2012.

His 5 titles are a record.

In 2009, Zersenay became only the second man (after Paul Tergat) to win three World Championship medals over three different surfaces in the same year, winning World Cross Country bronze, 10,000 metres World Championship silver on the track, and gold in road running at the World Half Marathon Championships.

He is a popular public figure in his home country; 2500 guests attended his wedding to Merhawit Solomon, which was broadcast live on Eritrean television.

His brother, Kidane Tadese, is also a professional distance runner.

He held the men's half marathon world record from 2010 to 2018.

He set a world record at the Lisbon Half Marathon in 2010.

He has also excelled in cross country running, winning a gold, a silver, and two bronze medals in the long-distance race over five IAAF World Cross Country Championships.

In 2016, he was chosen to be part of Nike's Breaking2 team to try to break 2 hours for the marathon and finished in 2:06:51.

Zersenay Tadese

was born in Adi Bana, Eritrea, and had a peaceful, rural upbringing with his six siblings, largely avoiding the troubles of the Eritrean War of Independence.

He became interested in cycling in his teenage years and, after winning a number of races, he set his sights upon becoming a professional cyclist in Europe.

However, the races of 30–50 km fell short of the distances needed to compete on the European circuit and he was ill-prepared for a transition to top-level cycling.

He was a relative late-comer to competitive running: in his late teens, scouts from a local athletics club suggested that his cycling stamina might translate to running and invited him to compete.

He won the race and was spurred on by the victory to start taking the sport seriously and focus on running.

Zersenay was adamant that his early years in cycling had given him a firm foundation for endurance running.