A generationTargeted, she raised her arms like a champion. In the end, Merat Kojeta won the sixth place and champion in the women’s marathon at the Sapporo Olympics. In order to save her life, the 28-year-old girl had to flee her native Ethiopia as a teenager. 13 years later, she reached the top of the world with the German national team jersey. “My goal is to win a medal for Germany,” Kejeta said, and apologized for not being successful: “I’m sorry.”
The shy athlete who started for the Kassel running team crossed the finish line at 2:29:16; only 116 seconds slower than champion Peres Jepchirchir (Kenya/2:27:20). This is not a reason to apologize. On the contrary: the 42.195 kilometers of the city for the 1972 Winter Olympics provides the extreme opposite to what was expected from places that used to compete for medals on ice and snow. Even Kenya’s miracle marathon runner Eluid Kipchoge complained about the weather: “We will stew in the same frying pan.”
“Very warm,” Kejeta said, exhausted after the ordeal of running. At 6 o’clock in the morning, the temperature is 29 degrees Celsius and the humidity is 80%. They also had stomach problems during the game, and they struggled with high temperatures. “When I was a kid, I dreamed of participating in the Olympics,” said Kejeta, who was able to keep up with the top group 30 kilometers. “I realized my dream and I am very, very satisfied.”
Maybe that was just the beginning of something bigger at the Paris Summer Olympics in three years. Katrin Dörre-Heinig won the bronze medal in Seoul in 1988, and she won fourth place in Atlanta in 1996. It has been 33 years. Only Kejeta secured the highest Olympic rankings similar to the current national team coach.
The second German player in Sapporo is Deborah Schöneborn. The Berliner reached 18th in 2:33:08 hours. Katharina Steinruck from Frankfurt won the 31st place (2:35:00).
Kejeta made a breakthrough in the 2020 Half Marathon World Championships and became the world’s elite, and proved her potential in the entire marathon distance with a time of 65:18 minutes. She was born in Ethiopia, a member of the Oromo ethnic group, and was persecuted in her hometown. She also had to worry about her life. After participating in a game in Italy in 2013, she decided not to return to Ethiopia.
She finally found a new home and new sports opportunities in Kassel. Since then, her motivation has been to “bring back a medal for Germany,” said Kejeta, who had only ran a marathon in Berlin during her career in 2019 before the Olympics. Sapporo’s performance is very important for a big fighter. Mind (“Running is my life”) is even more eye-catching for slim women.
But the marathon has nothing: 170 kilometers of training workload per week is the foundation, coupled with talent and incredible ambition. “It was in my heart when I was a kid,” Kejeta once told the n-tv broadcaster. “When it comes to running, I’m like a drug addict.”
