In The Running For Tokyo Gold

It’s been a long and fraught training season, with some of Australia’s top athletes succumbing to lockdowns and injury. But finally our brightest hopes are off to Tokyo for a very different kind of Olympic and Paralympic Games.

- Ingrid Pyne

Bendere Oboya

A star in the making

The youngest of six, Bendere Oboya was always sprinting to keep up with her siblings, never realizing that one day she would parlay that into a world-class career. “We used to run everywhere,” the Ethiopian-born athlete recalls. “My brothers ran off ahead, so I was always racing to catch up.”

Still, young Bendere never gave much hint of the talent that has seen her compared to 400m legends Cathy Freeman and Jana Pittman. “Running wasn’t something I was particularly good at,” she says. “I lost at school. I didn’t make my first state championships for so long!”

So why did she persist? “I just loved it,” she explains. “I was never a great student and I was very shy. With athletics, I could close off and be myself. My confidence started to come out and I knew if I trained well, I would get there one day. I knew there was so much more in me.”