Alemayehu Bezabeh Desta ( Amharic: አለማየሁ በዛበህ ደስታ; born c. 1986) is an

Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...

n-born athlete who represents Spain internationally. He competes in middle- and long-distance running on the track, and also in cross country. His brother, Sisay Bezabeh, is also a professional runner and represents Australia internationally. In December 2010 Alemayehu Bezabeh was arrested as part of Operation Galgo, an investigation by the Spanish

Guardia Civil The Civil Guard ( es, Guardia Civil, link=no; ) is the oldest law enforcement agency in Spain and is one of two national police forces. As a national gendarmerie force, it is military in nature and is responsible for civil policing under the au ...

into an alleged doping ring among athletes in Spain, having been caught red-handed carrying a bag of his own blood for a blood transfusion.

Biography

Arrival in Spain

Born in

Addis Ababa Addis Ababa (; am, አዲስ አበባ, , new flower ; also known as , lit. "natural spring" in Oromo), is the capital and largest city of Ethiopia. It is also served as major administrative center of the Oromia Region. In the 2007 census, t ...

, Alemayehu Bezabeh arrived in Spain in 2004 via plane and stayed in the country as an illegal immigrant, sleeping outdoors and dreaming of becoming a professional runner. He began living off the winnings of the races he would take part in every week. Following a calf injury, doctors at a hospital in the

Community of Madrid The Community of Madrid (; es, Comunidad de Madrid ) is one of the seventeen autonomous communities of Spain. It is located in the centre of the Iberian Peninsula, and of the Central Plateau (''Meseta Central''). Its capital and largest munic ...

discovered that he had no papers and he did not know his date of birth.Arribas, Carlos (2007-10-18)
"Quiero ser español"
. '' El País''. Retrieved on 2009-12-13.

X-ray An X-ray, or, much less commonly, X-radiation, is a penetrating form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation. Most X-rays have a wavelength ranging from 10 picometers to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30&nb ...

wrist tests revealed him to be over 18 and after some estimations of his age he was given a nominal birthday of 1 January 1986. The test involved examination of the proportions of the individual bones of a wrist; it provides an estimate of biological age of a growing body, but is not informative for an age above 18 (male) when the bone growth saturates. As a result of his strong running skills, Bezabeh was given

naturalised citizen Naturalization (or naturalisation) is the legal act or process by which a non-citizen of a country may acquire citizenship or nationality of that country. It may be done automatically by a statute, i.e., without any effort on the part of the in ...

status in 2008 to allow him to compete internationally for Spain.

Start of running career

His first major competition for Spain was the 2008 Beijing Olympics and he reached the final of the men's 5000 metres race, taking eleventh place. After a win at the Cross de Atapuerca, he also performed well at the 2008 European Cross Country Championships, finishing in seventh and leading the Spanish team to the gold with the help of

Ayad Lamdassem Ayad Lamdassem (born October 11, 1981) is a Moroccan-born long distance runner who competes for Spain internationally. He has represented Spain twice in the 10,000 metres at the Summer Olympics (2008 and 2012) as well as the European Athletics ...

. At the end of the year he won the

Cross Internacional de Venta de Baños The Cross Internacional de Venta de Baños is a cross country running competition that takes place in Venta de Baños, Castile and León, Spain. The competition was first held in 1980 and since then it has been held every year in mid-December. Amo ...

, finishing ahead of Lamdassem and

Kidane Tadese Kidane Tadesse Habtesilase (Tigrinya: ኪዳነ ታዳስሰ; born 1 January 1987) is an Eritrean long-distance runner who specializes in the 5000 metres and 10,000 metres. He was born in Adi Bana. As a junior, he competed in the junior races ...

. The following year he won the Spanish cross country championships and ran in the

2009 IAAF World Cross Country Championships 9 (nine) is the natural number following and preceding . Evolution of the Arabic digit In the beginning, various Indians wrote a digit 9 similar in shape to the modern closing question mark without the bottom dot. The Kshatrapa, Andhra and ...

, finishing just outside the top thirty. He also competed at the

2009 World Championships in Athletics The 12th IAAF World Championships in Athletics () were held in Berlin, Germany from 15–23 August 2009. The majority of events took place in the Olympiastadion, while the marathon and racewalking events started and finished at the Brandenburg ...

but he failed to make the 5000 m final. Despite this setback, the year turned out to be his breakthrough season as he won the men's senior 10 km race at the 2009 European Cross Country Championships. He fought off former champions

Serhiy Lebid Serhiy Lebid or Serhii Lebid ( uk, Сергій Лебідь; born 15 July 1975 in Dnipropetrovsk) is a Ukrainian long-distance runner. Career He has won the European Cross Country championships on nine occasions, winn ...

and

Mo Farah Sir Mohamed Muktar Jama Farah (born Hussein Abdi Kahin; 23 March 1983) is a British long-distance runner. His ten global championship gold medals (four Olympic and six World titles) make him the most successful male track distance runner ever ...

, and went on to become the first Spanish champion in the history of the competition. At the

2010 IAAF World Cross Country Championships The 2010 IAAF World Cross Country Championships were held at Myślęcinek Park in Bydgoszcz, Poland on 28 March 2010. It was the first time in over twenty years that Poland hosted the annual championships, having previously held them in Warsaw in ...

he was fourteenth overall. A 5000 m silver medal at the

2010 European Team Championships The second SPAR European Team Championships took place on 19 and 20 June 2010. The track and field athletics tournament run by European Athletics was the successor of the old European Cup competition which was held annually until 2008. The 20 ...

boded well for the

2010 European Athletics Championships The 2010 European Athletics Championships were the 20th edition of the European Athletics Championships, organised under the supervision of the European Athletic Association. They were held at the Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys in Barcelona, C ...

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

, but he was ten seconds off his compatriot

Jesús España Jesús España Cobo (born 21 August 1978 in Valdemoro, Community of Madrid) is a Spanish long-distance runner, who mostly concentrates on the 3000 and 5000 metres. España first represented Spain at the 2001 IAAF World Cross Country Champion ...

, who took silver.Bezabah, Alemayehu
IAAF. Retrieved on 2010-11-07. He was fourth at the Atapuerca race which began the 2010/11 cross country season. He was set to defend his title at the

2010 European Cross Country Championships The 2010 European Cross Country Championships was a continental cross country running competition that took place on 12 December in Albufeira, Portugal. It was the second time that the country hosted the event, building upon the 1997 edition h ...

in December but abruptly withdrew after he was arrested.

Doping case

On 9 December 2010 Alemayehu was arrested as part of Operation Galgo, an investigation by the Spanish

into a large-scale doping ring among athletes in Spain centred on the disgraced Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes and the Spanish running star Marta Dominguez, who was arrested on suspicion of trafficking in drugs. He confessed to his involvement in the alleged doping ring after having been surprised by the Guardia Civil in the company of the top Spanish coach Manuel Pascua Piqueras and the retired competitive mountain-biker Alberto León, when he was caught red-handed carrying a bag of his own blood which he was intending to use for an illegal

autotransfusion Autotransfusion is a process wherein a person receives their own blood for a transfusion, instead of banked allogenic (separate-donor) blood. There are two main kinds of autotransfusion: Blood can be autologously "pre-donated" (termed so despite ...

to improve his athletic performance. The Real Federación Española de Atletismo immediately withdrew Alemayehu from the Spanish team that was due to compete on 12 December 2010 in the

European Cross Country Championships The European Cross Country Championships is an annual international cross country running competition. Organised by the European Athletic Association, it is the area championships for the region and is held in December each year. The championship ...

in Portugal, where he would have been the defending champion. In March 2011 he was cleared by the national federation of charges for attempted doping, as its committee declared that there was not sufficient evidence against him. The federation president, José María Odriozola, accepted Bezabeh's version of events – that he believed León was a medic who was analysing his blood for a liver problem. However, Spain's sports disciplinary committee overturned the verdict in June 2011, and banned Alemayehu from sports for 2 years.

Return to running

Alemayehu's doping suspension ended in January 2013 and he immediately returned on the cross country running circuit. In March he made his debut over the

half marathon A half marathon is a road running event of —half the distance of a marathon. It is common for a half marathon event to be held concurrently with a marathon or a 5K race, using almost the same course with a late start, an early finish or shortcut ...

and set a best of 64:54 minutes for fifth at the Tarsus Half Marathon. He had two international outings over 5000 m that year, taking eighth at the

2013 European Team Championships The 2013 European Athletics Team Championships was the 4th edition of European Athletics Team Championships, first named ''European Athletics Team Championships'' and not only ''European Team Championships'' as from the 1st edition ( Leiria 2009) ...

and running in the heats of the

2013 World Championships in Athletics The 14th IAAF World Championships in Athletics (Moscow 2013) () was an international athletics competition held in Moscow, Russia, from 10–18 August 2013. Initially, Russia won the most gold medals to top the table for the first time since 200 ...

. He was runner-up at the Cross de Soria in November to Ugandan Dickson Huru.Valiente, Emeterio (2013-11-10)
Huru and Tigabea win opening IAAF Cross Country Permit meeting in Soria
IAAF. Retrieved on 2013-11-28. On 8 December 2013, Bezabeh won the

2013 European Cross Country Championships The 2013 European Cross Country Championships was the 20th edition of the cross country running competition for European athletes which was held in Belgrade, Serbia, on 8 December 2013. The senior individual winners were Alemayehu Bezabeh of Spain ...

in a time of 29.11

Personal bests

*All information taken from IAAF profile.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bezabeh, Alemayehu 1986 births Living people Athletes from Addis Ababa Spanish male middle-distance runners Spanish male long-distance runners Ethiopian male long-distance runners Ethiopian male middle-distance runners Spanish male cross country runners Ethiopian male cross country runners Athletes (track and field) at the 2008 Summer Olympics Olympic athletes of Spain Spanish people of Ethiopian descent Spanish sportspeople of African descent Sportspeople of Ethiopian descent Naturalised citizens of Spain Doping cases in athletics Ethiopian sportspeople in doping cases Spanish sportspeople in doping cases World Athletics Championships athletes for Spain European Cross Country Championships winners Ethiopian expatriate sportspeople in Spain