Tilahun Regassa

Tilahun Regassa Dabe (born 18 January 1990) is an Ethiopian long-distance runner who mainly competes in road running competitions. He has a half marathon best of 59:19 minutes and has won the Zayed International Half Marathon and Lille Half Marathon. He made his marathon debut at the 2012 Chicago Marathon and ran the third fastest ever debut of 2:05:27 hours.

He has won a number of major road races in the United States including the Boilermaker Road Race, Bolder Boulder, Crescent City Classic, Monument Avenue 10K, the Cooper River Bridge Run, and the Falmouth Road Race. He represented Ethiopia at the 2009 IAAF World Half Marathon Championships and won the team bronze medal.

Born in the city of Nazret, he endured a difficult childhood. His parent divorced when he was three and he was raised by his father until the age of fifteen, when his father died. Tilahun worked for a stone company and lived on the streets for three years afterwards, relying on food handouts. Tilahun's first road races came as a teenager in Addis Ababa. He ran at the Great Ethiopian Run in 2006 and came fourth with a time of 28:34.77 minutes. He returned a year later but managed only ninth. Having demonstrated promise as a runner, local coaches told Hussein Makke, an elite running manager, of his potential. Makke took him into his stable of runners and Tilahun began training full-time.

Tilahun began competing in Europe for the first time in 2008 and his calibre became obvious. He was runner-up at the 20 kilomètres de Maroilles (timing 59:18 minutes), then ran 5000 metres and 10,000 metres bests of 13:12.40 and 27:32.60 minutes on the track. He showed his aptitude was for longer races, however, as at the Lille Half Marathon he won on his debut over the distance with a time of 59:36 minutes. It was one of the fastest times for a teenage athlete and set a new all-comers record for France. He ran his second half marathon race two months later in Delhi and his time of 1:00:28 was good enough for fourth in the high quality race. He was runner-up to Tadesse Tola at the inaugural Bahir Dar Cross Country in December.

...
Wikipedia