Background

Just turned 23, Tirunesh Dibaba for the past 4 years has been among the hottest female athletes in the world in any sport: since her bronze medal in Athens, she has broken both the indoor and outdoor 5000m World Records, tied the world 5K road-race record, won double gold at World Cross Country and become the first athlete, man or woman, ever crowned World Champion at both 5000 and 10,000 meters. Starting with her breakthrough in 2003, when she finished 7th at senior World Cross just a day after winning the junior title, the cousin of three-time Olympic medalist Derartu Tulu has lived up to the family reputation for accomplishing both the daring and the historic. And she is not alone: her older sister, Ejegayehu, is the 2004 Olympic silver medalist at 10,000 meters; her younger sister, Genzebe, made her professional debut at the Reebok Grand Prix in NYC in 2007 and is the 2008 World Junior Cross Country Champion; and little brother Dejene is looking good at 800m. When asked at whether there were still more to come, Tirunesh smiled and nodded.

Tirunesh – whose name in Amharic means “you are good” but who has also been aptly called the “baby-faced destroyer”– in 2003 became the youngest athlete ever to win an individual gold medal at the World Championships, and in 2004 became the youngest Ethiopian to win an Olympic medal. Does she agree with the “baby-faced destroyer” description? “I believe so then and now, too. I have to “destroy” in this business of ours. I cannot be off guard.”

In March 2008, Tirunesh won her third World Cross Country 8K title, tying her with Tulu and Lynn Jennings. Adding her short-course title in 2005 and her Junior title the year before, she joins Grete Waitz of Norway with five individual gold medals and Werknesh Kidane as a winner of eight individual medals overall. Toss in the team titles, and Tirunesh has 14 gold medals from the World Cross Country Championships, the most of any athlete in history.

That spring, the Addis Ababa hosted the African Championships and Tirunesh was not going to miss the opportunity to compete in front of her countrymen. Tirunesh led Ethiopia to a 1-2-3 finish in the 10,000m, with sister, Ejegayehu takeing silver. Little more than a month later, Tirunesh obliterated compatriot Meseret Defar's 5000m world record by more than five and half seconds at the famed Bislett Games in Oslo.

Having already smashed a world record and earned a championships title, Tirunesh went to the Beijing Olympics as a heavy favorite in the 10,000m, and as certain co-favorite with Defar in the 5000m. In the Olympic 10,000m, Tirunesh followed Kenyan-born Dutchwoman Lornah Kiplagat for much of the first half of the race.  In the second half, Tirunesh shadowed Ethiopian-born Turk, Evlan Abeylegesse through the final kilometers.  On the  last lap Tirunesh blasted away from Abeylegesse to win convincingly in 29:54.66, a new Olympic and African record, as the gold and silver medalists became only the second and third women to ever dip under thirty minutes.

While the 10,000m race was fast enough to break nine separate championship, area and national records, the 5000m final proved to be pedestrian by Tirunesh's standards. It was only in the last few laps that the pace began to pick up.  Tirunesh was again able to run away from Abeylegesse and Defar (who had been spiked earlier in the race) with a staggering final kilometer of 2:36.63. It completed an Olympic double that no woman had ever before achieved.  

Dibaba completed a perfect season and was named Track & Field News Athlete-of-the-Year. She wed longtime boyfriend and fellow Ethiopian Olympic medalist Sileshi Sihine in a lavished ceremony in Addis Ababa. .