Teddese Lemi first took part in an international race over 800 meters at the U20 World Championships in Bydgoszcz in 2016 . He managed to get into the semifinals, in which he was able to improve to 1: 47.53 min. However, there was not enough time to reach the final, so he was eliminated and finished in 10th place overall. In 2017 he won the Ethiopian Championships with a new best time and was able to improve to 1: 46.54 minutes in June. In early July he took part in the U20 African Championships in Tlemcen. He ran into the final, in which he could win the silver medal. In March 2018 he ran a time of 1: 46.00 minutes, which has since been his best time over 800 meters. In July he again took part in the U20 World Championships over 800 meters in Finland . Due to a disqualification in the preliminary stages, he was unable to achieve a top placement.
In 2019, he switched from the 800 to the 1500 meter distance. In March he appeared as part of the Ethiopian mixed relay at the World Cross Country Championships in Aarhus. The quartet won the gold medal with a time of 25:49 minutes. Lemi won over 1500 meters at the national championships in May and later ran the best time of 3: 35.09 min in Marseille in July. A few weeks later he won the national elimination competition and thus secured himself participation in the World Championships in Doha. In August Lemi first started at the Africa Games in Rabat. Due to the slower second prelim, he just missed the finals in fifth place. Overall he finished 13th. At the beginning of October he started in Doha. An incident occurred during the course of the race, after which the Norwegian Filip Ingebrigtsen suddenly threw him out of step and fell. Lemi ran the race to the end and theoretically would have been eliminated in eleventh place. The arbitral tribunal refrained from punishing Ingebrigtsen, but qualified Lemi for the semi-finals. In the semifinals he was able to run a little faster, but was eliminated as the penultimate of the run.
Ethiopia
Bydgoszcz
Tlemcen
Aarhus
Rabat
Doha