Roba lifted by adoring Ethiopian fans

When Ethiopia's Fatuma Roba ran to her third consecutive Boston Marathon victory on Monday, she did so with some familiar accompaniment, flag-waving Ethiopian fans running alongside after bursting onto the course. It has become something of a tradition surrounding the 27-year-old Atlanta Olympic champion.

When Roba won the Olympic marathon in 1996, two Atlanta-based Ethiopian athletes, a runner and a soccer player, spontaneously broke into a run alongside her for brief stretches, one of them wearing the green, yellow and red colours of the Ethiopian flag on his tracksuit.

Wubishet Mamo, 20, a Boston-resident student from Ethiopia, had watched Roba's Olympic victory on TV in 1996. "There was no way for me to express my support," he said, "other than to sit and watch her until she finished."

When Roba came to Boston, Mamo and a crowd of his friends from a Boston-area Ethiopian soccer team found a way to actively make their support felt.

During all of Roba's three Boston Marathon appearances, they have met at their regular soccer training grounds an hour before the race and travelled to 'Heartbreak Hill,' the toughest point in the course, about 20 miles into the 26.2-mile race.

After cheering and waving their flags, they have then travelled further down the course to Beacon Street for a final show of support. This year, when Roba appeared at Heartbreak Hill, Mamo burst onto the course. "I went there to wave the flag and support her, but when I saw she was in the lead, I couldn't help it, I had to follow her," he said.

Mamo and a friend, Derege Abebe, held a huge flag aloft behind Roba, and ran abreast with Mesele Kifle, another flag-bearer wearing a T-shirt with the likeness of 1960 and 1964 Olympic marathon champion Abebe Bikila on it.

"Winning marathons is an Ethiopian tradition, beginning with Abebe Bikila," said Bruke Tadesse, 23, a sales associate, who was not content to just accompany Roba briefly while holding a flag.

Tadesse handed her a headband in the colours of the flag that Roba, smiling, accepted and wore for the remainder of the race. "I was feeling tired," said Roba, whose feat of three consecutive victories in Boston has been accomplished by just one other woman, Uta Pippig of Germany. "But when I saw them, when they gave me the flag, I felt something; the fatigue left me."

The colourful flag once again provided the backdrop Monday night at a celebration held by the Boston Ethiopian community in Roba's honour. Ethiopian marathoners in Boston, including 1989 men's champion Abebe Mekonnen, have been similarly honoured in the past.

"Fatuma won regally," said Seblewongel Argaw, an executive director of a woman's organisation in Boston, who was draped in a traditional striped tunic and pants from southern Ethiopia, but with the colours of the flag inserted along the midsection. "She made us all so proud."

"Their reception moved me," said Roba of the roar that accompanied her entrance into the hall and that she acknowledged with both arms raised in the air.

"It makes me want to come back so they can greet me like that again." The crowd was thinking along the same lines. When Roba was presented with a plaque, the words "from a proud Boston Ethiopian community" inscribed on it, she was asked to say a few words.

But as Roba approached the microphone, cheers of "Yidegemal! Yidegemal!" ("It will be repeated!" in Amharic, the official Ethiopian language) rang out. No runner, male or female, has ever won Boston four times in a row. "If you say so," she began, drawing a fresh round of applause in affirmation. "If you say so, then with your help, it will happen. With your support, and with God's help, it will happen."

Answering a question about a possible fourth consecutive victory at a press conference on Tuesday, Roba revealed how heartfelt that promise was. "If I am invited and come back again," she said, eliciting a smile and reassurance of an inevitable invitation from the race’s director, "then I will come expecting to win."

Sabrina Yohannes (Reuters) for the IAAF