The Ethiopian Premier League season came into full circle with all titles decided ahead of the final day. St George triumphed as champion with a game in hand while Baherdar Ketema secured its runner-up spot eight points clear of third place Ethiopia- Insurance (Medin.) Arbaminch Ketema, Legetafo and Ethio-Electric are the three teams relegated to the lower league.
Head Coach Zerihun Shenegeta led St George for the recent back to back Premier League title taking the tally to a record 16 championship titles. Nineteen wins, nine draws and two defeats St George claimed the title with 66 points.
An amazing first round run followed by tense closing rounds, Baherdar Ketema secured runner-up spot in full color. In his very first season at the club Degarege Yegzaw achieved the club’s biggest ever honor a place in next season CAF Confederation Cup.
Though nothing to show for the record Ethiopia-Insurance’s third place finish is something to mention as a huge success to both Gebremedin Haile and the club Board Chairman Mengestu Maheru who took the responsibility of signing the Coach. Medin is expected to become one of the strong title contenders for the coming season.
Wolkite Ketema’s late revival helped the side stay at the top tier for a successive third season. One could say Getaneh Kebede’s season long battling led the team in to safety than Coach Gebrekristos Birra considered a father figure than a leader.
A draw with Adama Ketema on the closing day Thursday, Wolkite survived from relegation while Arbaminch Ketema parachuted down to Higher League following a disappointing final day draw with Hawasa Ketema. Arbaminch finished 14th in the table with 37 points.

They claimed the top two spots at the World Athletics Cross Country Championships Bathurst 23 in February and now Berihu Aregawi and Jacob Kiplimo will clash again, this time over 5000m on the track on 21st of July, 2023.
Aregawi secured silver in Bathurst to go with his 2021 5000m Diamond Trophy and world 5km record while Kiplimo added cross country gold to his world half marathon title and world record, plus 10000m bronze medals at the Olympic and World championship.
Ethiopia’s Aregawi opened his season at the Diamond League meeting in Doha and ran 7:27.61 to finish third in the 3000m, the distance he contested in Monaco last year and achieved a runner-up spot in 7:26.81.
Uganda’s Kiplimo then claimed a half marathon win in New York in March but is yet to compete on the track this year – his last track races being the Commonwealth Games 5000m and 10,000m finals, and he won both.
They will be joined by Jimmy Gressier of France, who has twice improved the European 5km record in Monaco.

The race favorites traded attacks in punishing stages in the Pyrenees.
Everyone expected this year’s Tour de France to be a two-cyclist race between the defending champion, Jonas Vingegaard of Denmark, and the 2020 and 2021 winner, Tadej Pogacar of Slovenia. And everyone expected the first true test for them to come on Days 5 and 6 in the Pyrenees mountains.
Wednesday was Vingegaard’s day, but Thursday was Pogacar’s, and the Tour looks as if it could be a ding-dong battle between them for the next two weeks.
First blood went to Vingegaard on Wednesday. Jai Hindley of Australia won the stage and, temporarily, the leader’s yellow jersey, but the real battle took place a little farther back down the road. Vingegaard powered away from Pogacar with a mile to go to the summit of the Col de Marie Blanque and turned an 11-second overall deficit to his rival at the start of the day into a 53-second advantage.
Thursday brought an even more punishing stage, with climbs up the famed Col d’Aspin and Col du Tourmalet and, crucially, an uphill finish to Cauterets-Cambasque.
Aspin was plenty steep, but knowing there were two stern climbs to come, neither Vingegaard nor Pogacar attacked. Things heated up on the Tourmalet, which has been a part of more than 80 Tours since 1910.
Climbs on the Tour are rated Category 1, 2, 3 and 4 depending on their severity. The Tourmalet is one of a handful rated “hors catégorie,” or “beyond categorization,” so difficult that they defy classification. Its summit is at nearly 7,000 feet.
Vingegaard, helped by his strong Jumbo-Visma team, attacked with about two miles to the top of the Tourmalet, dropping the race leader, Hindley, and others. When his final teammate, the American Sepp Kuss, fell behind, it left only the Tour’s two biggest stars together. Vingegaard kept the hammer down. But unlike on Wednesday, Pogacar was able to cling to him all the way to the top. “You really put Pogacar on the limit,” Vingegaard’s team radio told him, hopefully.
After a speedy ride downhill, eight riders joined together in the lead at the bottom of the final climb, with President Emmanuel Macron of France, a cyclist himself, enjoying the race in an officials’ car behind them.
The group followed the determined pace of Vingegaard’s teammate Wout van Aert until three miles to go, when Vingegaard took off. Pogacar followed, and only Michal Kwiatkowski of Poland could hang with them.
Vingegaard tried again as the climb cruelly hit its steepest part two miles from the top. Again, Pogacar matched him, as the best cyclists in the world struggled behind them.
Vingegaard seemed to be the driving force of the stage, but with a mile and a half to go, the tale took a twist when Pogacar made a surprise attack. Vingegaard seemed to be caught unaware and couldn’t keep up. Pogacar raced on to the stage win at the summit.
Kuss, Vingegaard’s teammate, said: “We wanted to make it a tough race, especially on the Tourmalet. But Pogacar was really strong today.”
Because he was ahead of Pogacar by 53 seconds going into the stage, Vingegaard took the yellow jersey as the overall leader, but Pogacar lurks just 25 seconds behind. Hindley fell to third, 1 minute 34 seconds behind.
After a couple of flatter stages, Sunday’s climb of the Puy de Dôme looms large. And there are five more stages with significant mountain climbs after that.
Had Vingegaard left Pogacar behind on both of the big midweek stages, the Tour might have felt all but over. Instead, as Pogacar said, “It’s going to be a big, big battle until the last stage, I think.”

A brilliant battle between world record-holders resulted in the sixth and seventh-fastest 5000m performances of all time as Berihu Aregawi blazed to a 12:40.45 finish to beat Joshua Cheptegei at Lausanne’s Athletissima meeting.
Ethiopia’s Aregawi had already made history over the distance on the roads, running a world 5km record of 12:49 in Barcelona in 2021, but he was up against a stacked field in the sixth Wanda Diamond League meeting of the season, one that featured Uganda’s Cheptegei, who set the world 5000m record of 12:35.36 in Monaco in 2020.
Now only Cheptegei, Kenenisa Bekele, Haile Gebrselassie and Daniel Komen remain above Aregawi on the all-time list for the 5000m on the track and given the way he ran, there looks like there could be even more to come from the 22-year-old.
The pace lights at the Stade Olympique de la Pontaise were set to target the meeting record of 12:55.23 and that’s the way the race began, with the field following the pacemaker through 2000m in 5:09.49. But as they ticked off the laps, the tempo picked up and Aregawi led through 3000m in 7:41.50, leaving the lights behind. He also began to leave his rivals behind as 4000m was reached in 10:13.79 and later he only had Cheptegei for company.
Cheptegei wasn’t giving up and was still challenging for the win off the final bend, but Aregawi remained full of running and kicked away to cross the finish line a second clear, with Cheptegei chasing him home in 12:41.61 – the seventh-quickest 5000m in history and his own fastest time since setting the world record.
Hagos Gebrhiwet won the fight for third place, pipping his Ethiopian compatriot Telahun Haile Bekele by just 0.01 – 12:49.80 to 12:49.81