Miruts Yifter
Distance runner. An appreciation MIRUTS Yifter, who has died aged 72, was one of Ethiopia’s most famous distance runners and was particularly remembered for his double Olympic success over both 5,000m and 10,000m at the 1980 Moscow Games.
Short of stature and balding, his unathletic appearance belied a devastating finishing burst which earned him the nickname of Yifter the Shifter. He also won bronze in the 10,000m in the 1972 Munich Olympics and qualified for the final of the 5,000m, but inexplicably failed to appear for the race amid claims team officials had not brought him to the stadium timeously.
The reason for his no show was never clarified and that, along with uncertainty as to his true age, rendered him a somewhat enigmatic figure.
Adding to the intrigue as to what truly happened in Munich, on his return home, the Ethiopian regime imprisoned him for failure to win gold at the Games. But with the help of prison guards he was able to continue some training and after about three months secured his release, enabling him to finish first and second at 10,000 and 5,000m respectively at the All African Games in Lagos in 1973.
Continued good form meant he was a strong favourite for the Montreal Olympics in 1976 but Ethiopia boycotted them in support of the anti-apartheid protest sparked by the All Blacks’ rugby tour of South Africa. His absence To place your notice in Family Announcements Monday - Friday 9.00am -5.00pm allowed his rival, the great Finn Laase Viren, to win, for the second successive Games, both the 5,000 and 10,000m crowns.
In 1980 at Moscow, Viren was attempting a third consecutive success. In the 10,000m, he tried to make a move one and a half laps from home but Yifter and teammate Kedir kept him in check until 300m from the line when Yifter went into overdrive to win comfortably. The BBC’s David Coleman in a typically enthusiastic commentary exclaimed, “He really is flying, the power is there, he has done what we expected, destroying them in the last lap”.
Five days later in the 5,000m final, his fifth demanding race in nine days, the same happened with Yifter switching on the after burners from about the same distance out to claim his second gold. Fellow Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie, considered by many the world’s greatest distance runner, was inspired by Yifter’s Moscow feats, listening rapt to the radio coverage as a seven-year-old.
Yifter’s finishing ability at the end of a long race was legendary and it was reckoned that if he was in contention at the start of the last lap the others had no chance. Blessed with good basic speed he developed it by doing short hill sprints and interval training on the track. The American runner Craig Virgin claimed to have been the first to coin the nickname Yifter the Shifter.
However, his international career had an inauspicious start. Running for Africa against America in the 5,000m in 1971 in North Carolina, he mistakenly began his last lap kick on the penultimate lap and was unable to finish the race. He made amends the next day by winning the 10,000m from leading American Frank Shorter and over the next decade went on to enjoy huge success.
He was twice a double winner in the inaugural World Cups over 5,000 and 10,000m in 1977 and 1979 in Dusseldorf and Montreal. In the first African Championships in 1979 in Dakar he won the double at 5,000 and 10,000m, while he won the famous San Blas half marathon in Puerto Rico three times establishing a world best time for the distance in 1977. And in 1982 and 1983 he was a member of the winning Ethiopian team at the international cross country championships.
Born in humble circumstances in Adigrat in the Tigray region in the north of the country, his long daily walks and runs to and from school were his early training. Initially he worked in factories and as a carriage driver until he began training with Ethiopia’s 1968 Olympic team. He joined the Air Force to further his running career, eventually becoming a lieutenant.
His status at different times with regimes in the volatile world of Ethiopian politics was unclear but in the late 1990s he sought political asylum in Canada after he claimed to have been attacked by the military for his stance against ethnic discrimination.
He upheld an outstanding Ethiopian tradition of distance running, following in the footsteps of Olympic marathon champions Bikila and Wolde and paving the way for later Olympic champions Gebrselassie and Bekele. Telephone 0141-302 6000 or by e-mail at announcements@heraldandtimes.co.uk