Ageze Guadie

Ageze Guadie
Personal information
National team  Israel
Born (1989-09-11) September 11, 1989
Ethiopia
Residence Netanya, Israel
Height 1.75 m (5 ft 9 in)[1]
Weight 56 kg (123 lb)[1]
Sport
Sport Running
Event(s) Marathon
Updated on 10 August 2016.

Ageze Guadie (Hebrew: גואדה אגזה‬; born September 11, 1989) is an Ethiopian-born Israeli Olympic marathon runner.[2][3]

Early and personal life

Born in Ethiopia, he is an Ethiopian Jew (Beta Israel) and is the seventh of nine children in his family.[2][4] He made aliya and moved to Israel with his family at age 13, in 2002.[5][2][4] His family lived in an immigrant absorption center in Beersheba, while he went to a boarding school near Hadera.[2]

He served as a technical quartermaster in the Israel Defense Forces.[2] After the army, he worked as a waiter in a cafe, and as a mover.[2] He then became a sports teacher at a school in Netanya, Israel, where he now lives.[2]

Running career

He ran for the club Hapoel Emek Hefer, won Under-16 regional and national competitions at middle distances, and at the age of 16 won the Israeli cross country youth championship.[2][4] His mother initially did not want him to compete in running, as she felt it was a difficult sport and she thought he would be too skinny.[2] In 2012, he signed up for physical education studies at the Wingate Institute in Netanya, and trained with Israeli Olympic marathon runner Zohar Zimro.[2]

In December 2015 he came in third with a time of 67:04 in the Israeli championships in the half marathon in Beit She'an, behind Marhu Teferi and Berihun Weve.[2][6] He began to consider running a marathon for the first time, saying "I felt that if I did 21 kilometers in 1:07, I had the second half in my legs. Your gut tells you that you can do it. Go for it. I had faith and courage; it came from the heart."[2]

Guadie completed his first marathon run, at the Rotterdam Marathon in the Netherlands in April 2016, in a time of 2:18:51.[7][8] He came in 27th.[6] His time was the second-best for an Israeli running his first marathon, after Tesama Moogas."[2] He reflected, "This marathon taught me two things: Ability and courage. To believe in yourself and not be afraid, to go for broke, to turn the impossible into the possible."[2]

With his time in the Rotterdam Marathon, which was nine seconds better than the Olympic qualification standard, he qualified for the 2016 Olympics.[2] He competed for Israel at the 2016 Summer Olympics in the marathon, and finished 122nd with a time of 2:30:45.[9]

References

  1. 1 2 "GUADIE Ageze - Olympic Athletics | Israel". Rio2016.com. Archived from the original on 2016-08-06. Retrieved 2016-08-11.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Uri Talshir (2016-04-24). "An Ethiopian Israeli's Run From His Trailer Home to the Rio Olympics - Sports". Haaretz. Retrieved 2016-08-11.
  3. ↑ http://tiberias-marathon.iaa.co.il/index.php?lang=en&site_id=1&uri=/results/athlet/3372
  4. 1 2 3 "Ageze Guadie greeted at Ben-Gurion International Airport after competing in the Rotterdam Marathon; 2016". Jewish Virtual Library. 2016-07-30. Retrieved 2016-08-11.
  5. ↑ "Athletics: Israeli runner Rio-bound after stunning breakthrough". Times of India. 2016-08-02. Retrieved 2016-08-06.
  6. 1 2 "Athlete: Ageze Guadie". European Athletics. Retrieved 2016-08-11.
  7. ↑ Ben, Almog (2016-04-24). "An Ethiopian Israeli's Run From His Trailer Home to the Rio Olympics - Sports". Haaretz. Retrieved 2016-08-06.
  8. ↑ "Olympic runner defies the odds". KCTV5. 2016-07-28. Archived from the original on 2016-07-29. Retrieved 2016-08-06.
  9. ↑ [2:30:45]
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