A medal in every pot

When Ymar Getahun is asked to recall the number of competitions he has taken part in, his mother, Mantegbosh, rises from her chair and reaches atop the glass-doored closet in the living room, pulling down a traditional Ethiopian tool made of straw and woven with colorful strands. When she turns it over, out come dozens of medals whose straps are tangled together in knots.

"I don't even know where to put them," she says. When Getahun tells of an international competition he took part in, his twin brother, Shagao, walks toward the closet. He lifts the lid from a cooking pot kept in the living room rather than the kitchen, apparently because it's so shiny and new. He then removes two medals his brother won in that competition, and a medal with an inscription in Amharic. The prize was from a competition Getahun did not take part in. (More on that later.)

As Getahun, who just turned 18, discusses his career as an athlete, his mother occasionally points to the trophies in the closet, trying in vain to match each trophy with a race he mentions. The pride is palpable. Occasionally, his brothers and parents attend the competitions to cheer him on, which he says "gives me more speed."

But there is no idol worship. The trophies are not put on display for all to see, but are bunched together in a back corner of the closet. They are even less visible than a photo facing out from the closet taken a year ago during a visit to Ethiopia. Getahun is posing with two older brothers and an older sister - all of whom were supposed to immigrate to Israel after their parents and younger siblings, but never did. They were denied entry for a reason still unclear to Getahun, a refusal that casts a pall over the joy of his victories. "This is the most important thing to me. I will not rest until I get them [here]," he says.

Getahun immigrated to Israel with his parents and twin brother in 2001. He was 10 years old at the time. Before that, he lived with his family in Addis Ababa for three years, as they waited to immigrate. His memories from that time are not pleasant. He suffered abuse while attending school, and the awareness that he was living out of suitcases and that his family could be leaving at any moment hindered his studies.

He has no memories of the village he grew up in, nor does he remember anything before he was 7. His mother remembers her concerns about giving birth to twins in an isolated town far from the nearest health clinic, a town without any doctors. When asked if she ever thought one of her sons would be a talented runner, a smile creeps across her face. "What did I know then? All I wanted was for them to grow up and be healthy." Getahun's father, Layew, adds: "And for them to study hard."

Getahun tries to be a good son in this respect as well. He tries hard at high school and is determined to finish next year with a full diploma. But with all due to respect to school (and there is respect), running is what will take him where he wants to go.

Like many immigrant families from Ethiopia, the Getahuns were initially housed in the absorption center in Mevasseret Zion, the largest such center operated by the Jewish Agency. Getahun studied Hebrew in the morning and joined other children in the center for sporting activities in the afternoon. The center's sports counselor was Abebe Gessese, a well-respected coach in Ethiopia who worked with the national team as well as the world champion marathon runner Haile Gebrselassie.

For a decade now, Gessese has trained young athletes who immigrated from Ethiopia, some of whom did very well. But he regrets that "there is no consistency. Those families who move from the absorption center to distant places like Ashdod and Ashkelon stop training." When it was the Getahuns' turn to move out, they searched for an apartment in Jerusalem so their star runner could continue training.

Ymar Getahun studied at a number of schools he represented in competitions. He won his first medal in the fifth grade, his first year in Israel. After winning that race, "Abebe said to me then, 'Keep on training, you can get good results.'" So he has kept on running and is enjoying every minute of both the training and competition.

Last year he was enrolled in the Ben Shemen Youth Village, a boarding school that recently launched an athletic program. Since then he has also trained in Jerusalem's Sachar Park and at the Cosell Center sports complex in Jerusalem's Givat Ram neighborhood. "Sometimes I run and the wind blows in my hair and I don't think about anything. I just focus on running. This is fun," he says. "Sometimes, if things get a bit tough for me, I think about some of the great runners like Haile Gebrselassie, and this pushes me. It gives me power to run when I know I can go far."

He took part in the youth championships in Tel Aviv, Haifa and Eilat as well as competitions abroad, including in the Czech Republic. In 2007, he traveled with Gessese and his team to a youth competition in South Korea. Out of 67 countries, Israel captured first place in long-distance running.

Reason to be pleased

Given Getahun's resume, one might think that Israel's athletic clubs would be vying for his services. This hasn't happened. He is running for the little-known Frank Levy sports club, a team formed by the Bayit Cham nonprofit group. Bayit Cham operates a number of youth clubs in Jerusalem as well as the athletic program at the Mevasseret Zion absorption center.

"When we go to competitions, people ask, 'What is Frank Levy?' But we take all the medals," Getahun says. "Sometimes I hear people say about me, 'First place is his'. I try not to listen, just to run as best I can. Once I took part in a 1,500-meter race with an injured foot. I ran so fast and looked back and saw everyone running behind me. I didn't understand. What was happening here? At 300 meters, I opened up a lead. It surprised everyone, and I came in first place."

Gessese has good reason to be pleased. Getahun and two other proteges from the absorption center's athletic program will compete in the Maccabiah Games: Aviva Alelne, who is Getahun's age, and Desalen Kasa, who is slightly older. Gessese, 52, was a long jumper at the 1980 Moscow Olympics. He studied coaching in Moscow and later became the track coach for the Ethiopian navy. At a competition in Addis Ababa, he noticed a marathon runner whom he thought had potential, Tekeye Gebrselassie. Gessese offered him a chance to join the navy squad. "Once, when I went to his house to get his equipment, I met his younger brother, Haile," he recalls. "Later, sometimes Haile would come with his brother to train with us."

The younger brother, who today is a world champion marathon runner, started out at a different club. But when Gessese was named head coach of Ethiopia's national team in 1992, Haile Gebrselassie was picked to represent the country at the youth championships in South Korea. He took first place in the competition, the same one Israel captured in 2007. The legendary marathon runner is certainly a source of inspiration for Getahun. When Gessese speaks of him and says in passing that "perhaps Ymar will also be like him," Getahun sheepishly smiles and whispers, "I wish."

In 1997, Gebrselassie was invited to take part in the Tiberias Marathon. After the race, he returned to Ethiopia, but his coach stayed in Israel and requested political asylum. Since then, Gessese has been living here as a refugee. In 1999, he was hired as a coach at the Cosell Center. He has also opened an athletic club for immigrant children at the absorption center in Mevasseret Zion. "I saw the great potential that a lot of children there have," he said.

Amir Aviran, a Jewish Agency worker who has overseen social activities at the center, also saw the potential. "I understood that we have a coach here from the International Association of Athletics Federations, someone who can do more than just create a club, and I wanted the children to be able to take part in competitions," Aviran says. "The Bayit Cham foundation came into the picture and received a contribution from a French couple that helped found the Frank Levy sports club, which was named after their son who was killed in an accident in the Alps. To this day the children run under this banner."

Gessese requested permission to bring his wife and children to Israel, but failed. Eight years ago, his family received permits to settle in the United States, so since then Gessese has wracked up plenty of frequent flyer miles. "It was a shame for me to leave what I started here with the immigrant children," he said.

Runner's culture

Ethiopian immigrants have dominated long-distance running in Israel, and Gessese's team is making its mark. "In the Czech Republic, there were six of us Ethiopians, and people were scared of us because they know Ethiopians are good runners," Getahun says. "It was when they heard we were from Israel that the vicious remarks began, because of political issues." This competition was less successful for Getahun, but he does not despair. "The first time Haile ran outside of Ethiopia he finished in 37th place," Getahun says. "I said to myself, 'If that was good for him, then 30th place is good for me.' When I returned to Israel, I continued running."

During his family's trip to Ethiopia last year Getahun hired a private coach. He began each morning with a training session and then went on trips with his coach. Once, at a hotel, an Ethiopian youngster who came to meet his relatives from Israel approached him and struck up a conversation. "He asked, 'What do you do?' I told him that I run. He said, 'I also run,' and offered to swap medals as a souvenir." That's how a medal with Amharic writing reached Getahun's cooking pot.

When asked why Ethiopians are such good runners, Gessese responds that perhaps it's a combination of physical potential and a runner's culture. In Ethiopia, children run everywhere. In the village, children run to school and back, in the city children run to do errands for their parents. Getahun's brother Shagao, who also trained as a runner before devoting himself to a theater and communications degree, offers a sinister smile before saying, "Abebe has a word in Amharic that makes us run better - Tulu, tulu - fast, fast."

Commenting on the Maccabiah, Getahun notes that "this is an international competition and there is a responsibility in representing Israel well." But Gessese is frustrated that Getahun and others like him are not getting enough support.

"We always have to look for someone to buy shirts and sneakers, for someone to pay for the travel," he says. If that were not enough, his status in the country as a temporary resident, which is insufficient for obtaining an Israeli passport, creates problems whenever he travels abroad. "These kids need to compete more abroad," he says.

"Today the top countries in running are Ethiopia and Kenya. Israel can be just as good. There is great potential here. Ymar runs well and he sprints like a tiger. If they would just develop him and other kids like him, they could represent Israel admirably in the Maccabiah, and who knows, maybe even the Olympics." And Getahun whispers, "I wish."