U-16 championship: 16-year-old Ethiopian athlete mocked for his age[photos]

Girmawit Gebrzihair, an Ethiopian athlete, third in the 5,000m at the Under-20 World Athletics Championships in Finland, says she is 16 but she looks much older in some photos.

She recently won the bronze medal after finishing third in the 5000m race at the current competition.

However, Girmawit who listed his date of birth, November 21, 2001, is ridiculed online by social media users, including a Spanish athlete, Oscar Husillos, who says she seems too old to compete in a competition for under 20 years old.

Wrinkled features, damaged dentition; the Ethiopian who competes in the under-20 category would seem much older than what she writes on paper, we quickly comment on the networks by circulating an eloquent snapshot of the athlete. Born on November 21, 2001, as her ID card validated by the International Athletics Federation (IAAF) indicates, Girmawit Gebrzihair is expected to be 16 years old. Information that many will nevertheless have difficulty believing.

Another surfer added, “Is there no other way to control these things than to look at a passport? It’s hard to believe.

Spanish sprinter Oscar Husillos, 24, was also targeting the Ethiopian athlete.

He tweeted a picture of Gebrzihair with the legend, in Spanish, saying, “Her children and grandchildren are in the stands watching her race in the U20 World Championship. Husillos has since deleted the tweet and posted a series of posts saying that he had been taken “out of context” and that his words had been “misinterpreted”.

Responsible for checking the information on the marital status of all the athletes taking part in the competitions it organizes, the IAAF follows since 2017 the performances of Girmawit Gebrzihair. The runner had covered last year (so 15 years) a 10 km in Addis Ababa in 32’33”.

Last May, still in Ethiopia, she had signed a 9’28 “44” on 3000 meters.