Record runner worried about family: Between dream time and nagging nightmare

Record runner worried about family
Between dream time and tormenting nightmare

For Amanal Petros things couldn’t go any better in terms of sport – in the truest sense of the word. The 26-year-old undercuts his own German record in the marathon. In his private life, on the other hand, he is plagued by serious worries; he has no contact with his family, who live in the civil war region of Tigray.

Amanal Petros flexed his muscles again at the finish – despite all the strain, all the strain. So the 26-year-old still showed his biceps to the world after he had previously improved his German marathon record to 2:06:27 hours in Valencia. “Hard work pays off,” wrote Petros on Instagram.

In the previous year, Petros had broken the old German record of Arne Gabius with 2:07:18 hours in the Spanish coastal city, this time the running ace had actually set a time of 2:05 hours. “But it was too windy for that. I still broke my German record – and of course I’m very happy with such a performance,” said Petros.

Petros’ performance is all the more astonishing as he is constantly worried about his mother and two sisters. He has nightmares because they live in Ethiopia in the civil war area of ​​Tigray. “It is still very difficult, and at the moment I have no contact with my family. In the meantime I had received some messages indirectly through third parties. That is very bad and makes me sad,” said Petros last on Leichtathletik.de.

For a year now, people in northern Ethiopia have been living at war, children and families are dying, and in the face of the conflict, the United Nations fear that the country will “break up”. “But nobody seems to care anymore what is really happening,” said Petros, who only improved the 28-year-old German record in Carsten Eich’s half marathon by 25 seconds to 60:09 minutes at the end of October.

At the age of two, Petros and his family fled from their homeland Eritrea to Ethiopia, but the danger remained. At 16 he set out for Germany and found a new home there as a political refugee. When he arrived in Bielefeld, his refugee accommodation quickly became too cramped for him and he was drawn to the street. Systematic training developed from hobby runs in the club. Petros has been a German citizen since the end of 2015, and the 26-year-old has served as a sports soldier in the German Armed Forces since 2017.

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