Tirunesh Dibaba, aka ” baby-faced destroyer” is the youngest athlete to win an individual gold medal in the World Championships. She was eighteen years old. She is also an Olympic medalist and a serial World Championship title holder.

Tirunesh came to public attention in 2001 World Cross-country championship junior category at age fifteen. She finished fifth. However in her third outing, 2003, she won gold at the IAAF World Cross-country championship in Switzerland. After then, she spent the next fifteen years giving everyone else who raced with her, a run for their money.

Most interesting of all and maybe not surprising for some readers, she is the most decorated of the Dibaba sisters. And she has spent the longest time on the tracks. Seventeen years of running long distance is no mean feat. Ask people who have had to run from danger.

When Tirunesh was asked about that history making race in Paris, she confessed that she took was surprised when she won. The fact that everyone focused on the favourites in the race, made her an unseen threat. And she took advantage of her own obscurity.

Tirunesh made history again as the youngest Olympics medalist for Ethiopia in Athens 2004. By 2005, she set a world record in the 5000m race. That race had her sister finishing second right behind her.

Note that Tirunesh has won fourteen gold medals, four silver medals and three bronze medals. A total of twenty-one medals in her career.

Like her sisters, she has competed and won long distance races all over the world. From Paris to Moscow, from Fukuoka to home in Addis-Ababa, to Berlin and Jamaica. Dibaba’s races include 5000m, 10000m, half marathon and full marathon.

Don’t you think it is exciting to share the wins of these special women who are able to push one another to world titles and Olympic medals?

Please drop a thumbs up for this champion in the comments section below.

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