Amanal Petros: From refugee to European champion
Amanal Petros fled to Germany as a teenager. Now one of the world's top marathon runners, he recently won gold at the European Athletics Championships.
Amanal Petros, a refugee from Eritrea, has become a European champion after winning his first major marathon. The 31-year-old German runner achieved a record time of 2:09:11 at the European Athletics Championships in Birmingham, narrowly beating Italian runner Pietro Riva by seven seconds. Petros had faced difficulties entering the UK due to issues with his electronic travel authorization, delaying his arrival in Birmingham by a day.
He had spent months preparing for the event at altitude in Kenya, tackling a course with eight laps, inclines, and numerous turns. Petros dedicated his gold medal to his mother, who lives in Tigray, Ethiopia, separated from him since fleeing the war between Eritrea and Ethiopia when he was 16. He arrived in Germany in 2012, initially living in accommodation for asylum seekers before starting to play football and eventually joining an athletics club.
Petros secured Germany's first World Championship medal in the men's marathon since 1983, a significant achievement for him and his family.
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