1. Kenenisa Bekele Long-distance Running

Key accomplishments: 3X Olympic Gold Medallist, 5X World Championship Gold Medallist, 11X World Cross Country Championship Gold Medallist, 2X Berlin Marathon Winner

Ethiopia’s Bekele dominated the 5,000 and 10,000-metre track races throughout the 2000s and held the world record in both distances until 2020. He set his 5,000-metre world record in 2004 and the 10,000-metre record the following year. In recent years, he has transitioned to the marathon and been one of the best at that distance too, winning the Berlin Marathon in 2016 and 2019, making him arguably the most versatile long-distance runner ever. He was named in Ethiopia’s marathon squad for the Paris 2024 Olympics.

Kenenisa Bekele, one of the most decorated athletes across various long distances, will be a strong hope for a gold medal for Ethiopia at the Paris Olympics.

2. Eliud Kipchoge Long-distance Running

Key accomplishments: 11 world major marathon titles, 2 Olympic gold medals

Kipchoge is one of the most dominant distance runners of the 21st century, having won 11 major marathon titles and two Olympic golds in the marathon (2016 and 2020/1). His consistency at the top of his sport sets him apart from his peers. He started his career as a 5000m runner, winning a World Championship gold in 2003, and two Olympic medals before switching to marathons. He’s the only man to win the Berlin Marathon five times, and has held the world record for marathons five times. As it stands, he holds the second-fastest time at 2:01:09 behind the late Kelvin Kiptum, who broke his record at last year’s Chicago Marathon. Kipchoge has covered the distance of a marathon in 1:59:40, but that was not in an official race.

3. Samuel Eto’o, Soccer

Key accomplishments: 4X UEFA Champions League winner, 2000 Olympic Gold Medallist, 4X African Men’s Player of the Year

Eto’o may be controversial for his post-playing legacy as president of the Cameroonian Football Federation, but his exploits on the pitch were beyond reproach. One of the most feared strikers in the world in his prime at Barcelona and Internazionale, he conquered Europe twice alongside Lionel Messi for Barça only to come back to haunt them in his first season with Inter and win the Champions League a fourth time, counting the one he won as a youngster at Real Madrid. He defied the stereotype of African athletes as being useful for their physique only. Eto’o’s intelligence ensured he adapted his game in his 30s even as he lost some of his lightning pace and he left a respectable legacy at another top club, Chelsea, long past the peak of his powers.

Samuel Eto’o won the UEFA Champions League three times with Barcelona, and also won a rare African Olympic football medal when Cameroon claimed the title in 2000. 

4.  Kirsty Coventry Swimming

Key accomplishments: 2X Olympic Gold Medallist, 4X Olympic Silver Medallist, 1X Olympic Bronze Medallist

Now a politician in her home country of Zimbabwe, Coventry is Africa’s most decorated Olympian, male or female, with seven medals across five Games. Coventry made her Olympic debut at the 2000 games while still in high school, and went on to compete until the 2016 Games in Rio. She won all but one of her country’s Olympic medals to date, and is equal with the USA’s Katie Ledecky for the most individual swimming medals by a woman (7). Athens 2004 was the highlight of her career as she won three medals, including gold in the 200m backstroke, and brought momentary joy to a country which was in a politically difficult position under then-president Robert Mugabe a year after the US Imposed Sanctions over alleged rigging of elections.

5.  Tirunesh Dibaba Long-distance Running

Key accomplishments: 3X Olympic Gold Medals, 5X Athletics World Championship Gold Medals, 5X World Cross Country Championship Gold Medals

Arguably the greatest female distance runner of all-time, the Ethiopian has dominated the 5,000m and 10,000m races for much of the millennium and also won gold at the 2017 Chicago Marathon. Dibaba had a rivalry with compatriot Meseret Defar in the 3,000 and 5,000 metre races, particularly in the mid-2000s. Ultimately, Dibaba proved to be the more versatile athlete, as evidenced by her success in the marathon.

• Former marathon world record holder Kipchoge, 39, is aiming to become the first person to win three successive Olympic marathons after his victories at Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020.

• Now, 21 years on from their first battle in the French capital, this could be the final time Bekele and Kipchoge go head-to-head.

One of the great athletics rivalries of all time will be renewed at Paris 2024 after Kenenisa Bekele was named in Ethiopia’s marathon squad.

The 41-year-old is a three-time Olympic champion over 5,000m and 10,000m but has not appeared at the Games since London 2012, when he finished fourth over the longer distance.

However, his second-placed finish in the London Marathon last month means Bekele will come up against Kenyan great Eliud Kipchoge on 10 August.

Former marathon world record holder Kipchoge, 39, is aiming to become the first person to win three successive Olympic marathons after his victories at Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020.

His rivalry with Bekele stretches all the way back to their first meeting in a final, also in Paris, at the 2003 World Championships.

On that occasion Kipchoge took gold in the 5,000m, with Morocco’s Hicham El Guerrouj in second place and Bekele taking bronze.

A year later at the Olympics in Athens, Kipchoge would have to settle for bronze over the same distance as Bekele took silver behind El Guerrouj, with the Ethiopian then clinching gold over 10,000m gold.

Four years on at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, Bekele would again get the better of Kipchoge at the Games as the pair finished first and second in the 5,000m and Bekele defended his 10,000m title.

Kipchoge has established himself as an all-time great since switching to marathon-running in 2013, winning 11 major races alongside his two Olympic gold medals.

Bekele produced the sixth-fastest debut over 26.2 miles (42.16km) when he made a winning marathon debut in Paris in April 2014, but his career since then has been hampered by injuries. Now, 21 years on from their first battle in the French capital, this could be the final time Bekele and Kipchoge go head-to-head.

Naomi Girma is the best of America.

In the literal sense, she is U.S. Soccer’s reigning Female Player of the Year and, at just 24, the anchor of the back line for the U.S. women’s national team. She’ll make her Olympic debut with the USWNT on Thursday, a year after playing every minute of every game at the World Cup.

But it’s the figurative sense that’s even more important. Girma is a first-generation American, the daughter of two Ethiopian immigrants. When she dons the jersey with the U.S. crest on the chest, it’s a reminder of the promise this country holds and proof of how much better we are when we welcome, and celebrate, the melting pot of races and cultures that is uniquely American.

Her father, Girma Aweke, (in Ethiopia, children take their father’s first name as their last name) was a teenager when he fled Ethiopia during the “Red Terror,” a violent civil war that left more than 1 million dead. Aweke eventually made it to the United States as a refugee and put himself through school by working as a busboy and a dishwasher, becoming an electrical engineer.

Education brought her mother, Seble Demissie, to the United States, and she stayed after she graduated. She worked in banking and met Aweke through the Bay Area’s Ethiopian community.

The two settled in San Jose, where they raised Naomi and her older brother, Nathaniel. Maintaining their heritage was important, however, and Aweke and some friends in the Ethiopian community began a Saturday morning tradition of gathering at a local park. The adults would have coffee and socialize while their kids played in what became known as the Maleda soccer club.

As in most other countries around the world, soccer has a passionate following in Ethiopia, the equivalent of the NFL here. Still, none of the Maleda parents dreamed these weekend games in local parks would take their kids anywhere. Education was their priority, their own experiences reinforcing the idea that school was the key to the American dream. MIT, Columbia, Penn and Stanford are just a few of the schools where Maleda kids have gone.

Girma and her family didn’t know anything about the pay-to-play system that dominates youth soccer in the United States, powerhouse clubs that have become the main pipeline to college scholarships and the national team.

Even if they had, they wouldn’t have been interested.

When Girma was in second or third grade, however, one of her best friends joined a local club, Central Valley Crossfire, and she asked her parents if she could, too. Demissie said they hesitated at first; both she and her husband worked, and they didn’t know how they’d get Girma to practice.

But other families in the club said they could carpool, and they and Girma’s parents took turns shuttling their girls to practices and games.

Girma was a teenager when she took part in the Olympic Development Program, which IDs players for U.S. Soccer’s youth system. She was selected for the U.S. Under-14 team, and steadily rose through the ranks despite continuing to play primarily for either Crossfire or her high school team.

She did occasionally play with De Anza, one of those high-profile clubs, as a “visiting player.” But unlike most of the top players in the United States now, Girma’s most formative years were spent playing simply for the fun of it.

Though she grew up playing midfield, the U.S. youth team coaches shifted her to center back, a spot often reserved for the brainiest on the roster. Indeed, Girma is a cerebral player, with the ability to anticipate how a play will develop and make the appropriate adjustments. She’s also fast and fearless, and her poise calms everyone else on the field with her.

After being a three-year starter at Stanford (she redshirted as a junior after tearing her ACL) and a two-time Pac-12 Defender of the Year, Girma was the overall No. 1 pick in the 2022 NWSL draft by the San Diego Wave.

Three weeks before she made her debut for the Wave, she got her first USWNT cap. By the end of the year, she was a regular in the starting lineup. At last year’s World Cup, where the USWNT made its earliest exit ever at a major tournament, Girma was one of the few positives. Whatever other problems the team had to solve, director of defense was not going to be one of them.

Girma hopes her unique path to first a Stanford scholarship, then the No. 1 pick in the NWSL draft and now a cornerstone of the USWNT will show kids, and their parents, that they don’t have to play for one of those big-name clubs to be successful.

If that’s what a kid wants to do, great! If they don’t, or if it’s asking too much of the family, Girma is proof there are other ways to get noticed. Her talent, and the support of everyone around her in those formative years, mattered far more than the name on the front of her jersey.

By reaching the heights she has, Girma is also an example for all those kids who look like her or are also children of immigrants.

Soccer has, traditionally, been a white sport. Dunn, Smith and Girma all have talked of wondering if they belonged because there weren’t other kids who looked like them when they were growing up. Now the three, along with Mallory Swanson and Trinity Rodman, are some of the USWNT’s biggest stars.

Each year, the Ethiopian Sports Federation in North America holds a festival to bring the Ethiopian diaspora together and celebrate their culture and heritage. It’s centered around – what else? – Soccer. Significant figures in the Ethiopian community are honored, and this year Girma was one of them.

She was chosen because she’s a role model for all Ethiopians but particularly those here in the United States, said Yared Negash, a spokesman for the federation.

For Girma and her family, they’re just happy they can, in a small way, give back to the country that gave them so much.

“Endless opportunity is what (my parents) saw and found here,” Girma said. “Me being in this position is one of those opportunities that they didn’t really think of but kind of happened and we’re grateful for. It just shows the beauty of this country.”