Gudaf Tsegay: Eyes on Olympic glory at Paris 2024, but first the world records
Gudaf Tsegay’s medal haul is already impressive.
Three world titles outdoors, a world indoor crown, and an Olympic bronze. Plus two world records.
But the Ethiopian track athletics star is just getting started.
She still has many world record plans and has set sights on multiple podiums at the Olympic Games in Paris 2024.
Tsegay not only wants to top her races, ranging from the women's 1500m to the 10,000m, but wants to dominate by breaking world records as well.
Her latest target is lowering the 10km world record on Saturday (25 May) at the 2024 Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, Oregon. That would mean bettering her personal best by nearly half a minute to surpass Letesenbet Gidey’s current mark of 29:01.03.
Gudaf Tsegay: Born to run fast
Gudaf Tsegay seemed to be a naturally fast runner who was drawn to the middle and longer track races.
As a 16-year-old, when she first represented her nation internationally, she proved just how quick she really was.
The teenager set the world's fastest under-18 mark in the indoor 1500m, just months before winning her first medal, a silver at the 2014 World U20 Championships.
Her record-breaking form carried on two years later. She broke the world U20 indoor record over the 1500m, before her Olympics debut at the Rio 2016 Games, surprisingly as an 800m runner.
After that, Tsegay chose to stick to the 1500m and showed capabilities over the 3000m and 5000m.
Irrespective of the distance, it was clear that speed was her thing. She claimed the 1500m bronze behind Olympic and world champions Sifan Hassan and Faith Kipyegon at the 2019 world championships.
The Ethiopian moved up to the 5000m at the Tokyo 2020 Games in 2021, where she earned another bronze behind the winner Hassan and Kenya’s Hellen Obiri. That Olympic medal strengthened her grit to double up.
Born and raised in the Tigray region, in Northern Ethiopia, the versatile runner overcame a difficult period in her life by pushing herself to her limits at the 2022 World Athletics Championships.
She had not spoken to her family for nearly two years due to civil war in Tigray between November 2020 and November 2022.
"Not being able to talk to a father and brothers who had been advising you to strive and achieve more success every day is very difficult. It is even hard to explain," Tsegay said in an interview with BBC Sport Africa.
"I didn't talk to them for 18 months."
But when life threw her curveballs, she found inner peace on the track. The 2022 world indoor 1500m champion took outdoor world silver in the 1500m behind Kipyegon, before claiming the 5000m gold medal five days later.
Gudaf Tsegay celebrates winning gold in the women's 10,000m at the National Athletics Center in Budapest.
Since her incredible 2022 season, the 27-year-old has become one of the runners to watch, not only over the 1500m and the 5000m, but also in the longest track event.
Tsegay continued her record-breaking form last year, coming within just 0.09 seconds of compatriot Tirunesh Dibaba’s world indoor 3000m record.
She followed it up with the 10,000m world title in Budapest before signing-off the year with another world record, breaking Kipyegon’s 5000m mark with her astonishing 14:00.21 run.
"I was really angry to not bring back two medals from the World Championships, but I knew from our training I had a lot of potential to do something with my fitness," said Tsegay who is coached by her husband Hiluf Yihdego, of her season ending world record.
Ethiopia's Gudaf Tsegay is lifted into the air by her coach and husband Hiluf Yihdego after breaking the world record in the women's 5,000 meters at the Diamond League final at the 2023 Prefontaine Classic, at Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore.
2024: Another history-chasing year for Gudaf Tsegay
2024 is all about raising the bar yet again.
Last February, she came just half a second shy of the 3000m world indoor record with her blistering 8:16:60 run, and two months later became the third-fastest woman of all-time in the women’s 1500m list.
She was gutted not to have broken another of Kenyan Kipyegon’s world records at the Diamond League in Xiamen.
“I ran 3:50, that’s almost world record. Why not break it?” She posed after coming close to the 3:49.11 mark. The two-time Olympian has parked that attempt for now as she returns to Hayward field track at the University of Oregon, where she set the 5000m mark.
She's setting off to slash a whopping 28 seconds off her personal best of 29:29.73 from 2023. Letesenbet Gidey holds the 10,000m world record of 29:01.03 from June 2021.
Tsegay does love speed, but with the Olympics looming the stakes go even further.
"I am an indoor champion, I am a world champion, but when it comes to the Olympics, I am a medallist, not a champion.
"So I want to become one. I believe I can achieve my goal."
In Paris, she wants to match or even surpass the feat of Tirunesh Dibaba, the first woman to achieve the Olympic 5,000m/10,000m double.
And after watching Sifan Hassan’s triple in Tokyo, where the Dutchwoman won two gold medals in the longer distances and a bronze in the 1500m, she’s toying with the possibility of running- “maybe three or two” -events at the Olympics.