Berhanu Girma

Not to be confused with the former cross country runner Girma Berhanu.

Berhanu Girma Degefa (born 22 November 1986) is an Ethiopian long-distance runner who competes in road running events for Canada. His personal best for the marathon is 2:06:09 hours and he was the 2012 winner of Grandma's Marathon.

Berhanu made his debut over the marathon distance in 2009, competing at the Casablanca Marathon and finishing fifth with a time of 2:15:57 hours.[1] His next outing at the 2010 Valencia Marathon saw a three-minute improvement to 2:12:51 hours.[2] He was also fifth at the Košice Peace Marathon that year.[3] He fared less well in 2011, coming 19th at the Prague Marathon and 13th at the Twin Cities Marathon, barely managing to dip under two hours and twenty minutes that year.[4]

Berhanu was only 20th at the 2012 Marrakech Marathon but later set personal bests in the half marathon (61:54 minutes in Barcelona) the marathon, the latter in a winning time of 2:12:25 hours at Grandma's Marathon.[5] He set a 10K run best of 28:46 minutes at the Corrida de Langueux, where he was eighth.[6] He was also the runner-up at that year's Twin Cities Marathon.[7]

He was further down the rankings in his first two marathons of 2013, coming 14th at the Tiberias Marathon and eighth at the Chongqing Marathon,[4] but he made a surprise breakthrough at the Amsterdam Marathon with a performance of 2:06:09 hours to finish runner-up to the defending champion Wilson Chebet.[8]

In 2019, he was the 11th finisher at the Daegu International Marathon in Daegu, South Korea. His time was 2:14:50.[9]

References

  1. ^ October 2009 Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine. AIMS. Retrieved on 2013-10-22.
  2. ^ February 2010 Archived 2010-12-11 at the Wayback Machine. AIMS. Retrieved on 2013-10-22.
  3. ^ October 2010 Archived 2016-04-03 at the Wayback Machine. AIMS. Retrieved on 2013-10-22.
  4. ^ a b Berhanu Girma. Tilastopaja. Retrieved on 2013-10-22.
  5. ^ Girma wins Grandma's marathon Archived 2013-10-23 at the Wayback Machine. South Bend Tribune. Retrieved on 2013-10-22.
  6. ^ Vazel, Pierre-Jean (2012-06-23). Home victory in Langueux. IAAF. Retrieved on 2013-10-22.
  7. ^ Blount, Rachel (2012-10-08). Twin Cities Marathon: Kipyego wins men's; Faber leads women. Star Tribune. Retrieved on 2013-10-22.
  8. ^ Chebet breaks Amsterdam course record with third victory in a row. IAAF (2013-10-20). Retrieved on 2013-10-22.
  9. ^ "2019 Daegu International Marathon" (PDF) (in Korean). Daegu, South Korea: Daegu Marathon. 7 April 2019. Archived (PDF) from the original on 16 August 2021. Retrieved 16 August 2021.