![]() Tola during the 2019
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Personal information | |||||||||||||||
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Born | Ethiopia | 21 November 1994||||||||||||||
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Sport | Athletics | ||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Helen Bekele Tola (born 21 November 1994) is an Ethiopian–Swiss long-distance runner. [1] She finished second at the 2019 Tokyo Marathon, and third at the 2021 Berlin Marathon. She has also won the Annecy and Barcelona Marathons, as well as multiple other long-distance events. Born in Ethiopia, she now lives in Switzerland.
Helen Bekele Tola was born in Ethiopia. In 2015, she moved to Geneva, Switzerland. [2] Tola is married to Tesfaye Eticha, who competed for Switzerland at the 2012 Summer Olympics. [2]
Tola competes for the Stade Geneva athletics club. [3] In 2015, Tola won the Lausanne Marathon, [4] and the Basler Stadtlauf , a 5.9 kilometres (3.7 mi) race around the city. [5] In 2016, Tola won the Annecy Marathon, breaking the course record by over three minutes. [6] In the same year, she came second at the Lake Maggiore Half Marathon in a time of 1:15:37. [7] In 2017, she won the Barcelona Marathon in a course record time of 2:25:04. It was over four minutes better than her previous personal best. [8] [9] In the same year, she won the Switzerland Marathon light half-marathon event in a course record time of 1:09:47. [10] In 2018, Tola came second at the 10 km Corrida de Houilles race, [11] sixth at the Berlin Marathon, [12] and ninth at the Ras Al Khaimah Half Marathon. [13]
In 2019, Tola finished second at the Tokyo Marathon, in a personal best time of 2:21:01. [12] [14] She also finished fourth at the Berlin Marathon, [2] and was in the leading group of four racers, alongside eventual winner Ashete Bekere, Mare Dibaba, and Sally Chepyego Kaptich, for most of the race. [15] She finished in 2:21:36, 25 seconds slower than her personal best. [16] Later in the year, Tola won the 17.7 kilometres (11.0 mi) Murtenlauf race from Murten to Fribourg in a course record time of 57:50. She broke Franziska Rochat-Moser's 22 year old previous record by over a minute. [17] [18] [19] She also won the 10 km race at the Lausanne Marathon, [2] the 10 km San Silvestre Vallecana, in a personal best time of 30:47, [14] and the Scalata al Castello 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) race in Arezzo, Italy. [20]
In 2020, Tola won the Madrid 10k Run, beating pre-race favourite Ruth Chepng'etich. She finished in 30:50, the fourth fastest ever time at the event. [21] Later in the year, she came second at a Berlin 10k invitational event; her time of 30:59 was the fifth fastest time of the year. [22] She also won the 10,000 metres event at the Swiss Athletics Championships as a guest runner, [23] and came fourth in the one hour run race of the Memorial Van Damme Diamond League event. [24] Tola has also won the road race at the Escalade de Genève on four occasions. [16] Tola expressed a desire to represent Switzerland at the 2020 Summer Olympics. [2]
In 2021, Tola won the Belp Marathon. [25] Later in the year, she came third at the 2021 Berlin Marathon, [26] finishing behind fellow Ethiopians Gotytom Gebreslase and Hiwot Gebrekidan. [27] [28] She came ninth at the 2021 Tokyo Marathon. [29]