Refugee athlete Tachlowini Gabriyesos: My strength and power come from my past
Sports can overcome many barriers, including language differences.
Despite not being fluent in English, Tachlowini Gabriyesos - who only speaks Hebrew and Tigrinya - has no issues communicating with the other 36 athletes on the IOC Refugee Olympic Team.
“We don't need languages. We just communicate without them. We're dancing, we're joking all the time,” he said through a translator in a recent interview with Olympics.com at the team’s pre-Games camp in Bayeux, France.
With his contagious smile and bubbly personality, the long-distance runner is one of the most popular members of the team, which will represent over 100 million displaced people around the world in Paris.
“We have people from all over the world, with different cultures, different religion, different language,” Gabriyesos explained.
“I feel so good and I enjoy being here because, with the refugee team, even if we don't know each other and we don’t share the same language, it's very easy to communicate.
“They don't ask me questions like in other places, we just speak like normal human beings and that’s why I really like it in here. People are nice and it’s fun being around them.”
Tachlowini Gabriyesos is ready to take part in his second Olympic Games
From chasing camels and sheep to seeking refuge in Israel
Tachlowini, which means "grapevine" in Tigrinya, is the second of seven children and left Eritrea when he was very young.
“Until the age of 11, I lived in my village, taking care of the animals—sheep and camels—and running after them all day,” he shared.
The escalated violence in his region forced him to seek refuge in Israel. Before that, the 26-year-old had to endure a dramatic journey, first to Ethiopia and then to Sudan. However, the hardest challenge was crossing on foot the Sinai desert in Egypt: “You fear for your life. You don't know if there will be tomorrow. I saw people dying and get hurt,” he remembered.
That experience left him with emotional scars but also created a thick shell around him. “Today, my strength and power come from my past,” he said. “Everything I’ve been through, even when I thought I wouldn’t survive, has made me stronger now.”
Gabriyesos, who is proud of his African heritage ("The food, the craziness, the dancing are part of my culture", he says), has now adjusted to life in Israel: "It's a developed country, there's freedom and I can have many opportunities here," he added.
However, settling in wasn't easy. As soon as he arrived, he was moved to two different camps for teenagers and then had to learn Hebrew, a completely new language for him.
One day a principal from a boarding school north of Tel Aviv came to his camp accompanied by a running coach, Alemayu Faloro.
They asked if he was interested in sports: “Yeah, I want to be a runner,” the young Gabriyesos replied. He also shared that, since he was a child, he has been a great fan of his compatriot Zersenay Tadese, Olympic medallist in the 10,000m at Athens 2004 and a six-time half marathon champion.
“I told the coach that I wanted to be like him. I wanted to be a runner. So they took me to the boarding school, and from then my integration progress got better and better. They taught me Hebrew and my coach has always stood by my side for all these years and helped me with everything. Now thanks to him I’m going to my second Games.”
“At the beginning, as a kid, I didn't understand the process to be a professional athlete,” the Tokyo 2020 Olympian admitted. “I just knew I wanted to be like Tadese and I thought that by training for a few weeks, I would reach the same level. But you understand that it's actually a really long process and you need to work really, really hard.”
The best long-distance runners traditionally come from East Africa, but Tachlowini believes that’s not necessarily due to genetics: “It’s about working very, very hard, and I work very hard. That’s why I go to altitude training camps.”
And the hard work paid off.
In 2019 the runner from the Emer Hefer club took part in his first major event, the World Athletics Championships in Doha, Qatar:
“I was so stressed. I remember when I entered the stadium, I felt so overwhelmed and tense that I almost couldn’t feel anything,” he recalled about his 5,000m race, in which he finished 34th after delays due to visa issues and travel difficulties.
“It was so amazing for me to be in the same line with athletes I usually watch on YouTube and I admire. So it was amazing and crazy for me, like in a dream. At that time my level was not so high, and they were so fast and so strong, it was, like, amazing.”
Gebriyesos celebrates after finishing in the top 20 at the Tokyo 2020 marathon.
Tachlowini Gabriyesos: My memorable Tokyo 2020 Olympics
Gabriyesos was named for the Tokyo 2020 team after becoming the first refugee athlete to break an Olympic qualifying mark.
On top of that, he also had the honour to carry the flag at the Opening Ceremony along with former swimmer Yusra Mardini, an experience he can’t wait to tell his future children.
“It was a personal victory for me. I felt like I won all the obstacles, all the past I had. And this was my victory, to be in the biggest stage in the world. It meant a lot to me just to make it there, before I even competed,” he recalled.
On the day of the race in Sapporo, he ran an impressive 2:14:02, finishing 16th, less than six minutes behind gold medallist Eliud Kipchoge: “It was so exciting for me the day of the marathon, when I was in the same line with the best athletes, the best marathon runners in the world. And surprisingly, they were so nice. I spoke with them, they gave me tips. They were so nice. And again, it was very crazy for me to be in this place.”
Now Gabryesos is ready to impress even more in Paris: “I have more self-confidence. I think I know better the sport. And I think I know better what I need to do and how to work out to be a better athlete,” he explained.
“I feel stronger, I feel more confident. I just came from a very good training camp in Ethiopia. I was training with the best long-distance athletes, such as Kenenisa Bekele. So I feel confident, I feel strong, and I can't wait to race.”
The Eritrea-born runner is also aware that he’s part of a team whose goal transcends mere sporting results: “Our message to the world is that we are strong people are not weak people. Treat us as strong people. We just need you to open the door for us, and we will achieve the rest.
“I want people to accept us. And I want people to understand that no one is choosing to be refugee. No one choose to leave his home and his family and to start a new life, which is very difficult.
“So I want people to know that, we didn't choose this path. The life pushed us to go out and to flee our country. We here for freedom, for opportunities.”