Fatuma Roba

Fatuma Roba (born December 18, 1973 in Arsi ) is an Ethiopian long-distance runner and Olympic champion .

Like many other top African runners, she walked a long way to school as a child. Her first big success was a third place over 10,000 meters at the African Athletics Championships in 1993 in Durban . In 1996 she won the Rome Marathon and then won the gold medal in the marathon of the Olympic Games in Atlanta ahead of Valentina Jegorowa (RUS) and Yūko Arimori (JPN).

She won the Boston Marathon in 1997 (as the first African woman), in 1998 in her personal best of 2:23:21 h and in 1999. At the Tokyo International Women's Marathon in 1999 she was second and at the 1999 World Championships in Seville she was fourth in the marathon . In 2000, she finished third in the Boston Marathon.

In 2001 she won the Madrid Millennium Marathon and in 2004 the Nagano Marathon .

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personal data
SURNAME	Roba, Fatuma
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Ethiopian long distance runner
DATE OF BIRTH	18th December 1973
PLACE OF BIRTH	Arsi