Maryam aims to be our golden girl
Gulf Weekly, Bahrain - June 20, 2007
Subah’s performance was heartbreaking while Maryam’s heartening with the World Athletics Championships around the corner.
I have not met Maryam, who is based in Lausanne, Switzerland, but her story has always inspired me, in the same way that Olympic champion sprinter Wilma Glodean Rudolph’s did.
For a refugee who fled Ethiopia to escape political oppression, Maryam has done remarkably well. Born Zenebech Tola in Arsi, the village that also gave world long distance champion Haile Gebreselassie to athletics, Maryam sought asylum with her husband and coach Tareq Yaqoob (former Mnashu Taye) in Switzerland in 2002, according to the IAAF’s official web site.
Belonging to the ethnic Oromo group, the single largest group in Ethiopia but sidelined in mainline politics, Maryam began running at a very late stage, and out of compulsion rather than choice: to reach school which was a good 15 miles away and across hilly terrain.
But her precocious talent was evident right from the beginning. She even met the qualifying standards for the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, but the Ethiopian Athletics Federation denied her permission to represent her home country.
Disappointed and desperate, Maryam sought Swiss citizenship, and failed. She even signed multiple citizenship papers with four other countries – Canada, Turkey, France and Bahrain. Maryam finally chose Bahrain nationality in 2005 ...