Fatuma Roba

Fatuma Roba ( born December 18, 1973 in Arsi ) is an Ethiopian long-distance runner and Olympic gold medalist.

Like many other African elite runners also placed her as a child a long way to school on foot. Her first big success was a third place finish in the 10,000 m at the African Athletics Championships in 1993 in Durban. In 1996 she won the Rome Marathon and won the marathon race of the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, the gold medal ahead of Valentina Egorova (RUS ) and Yuko Arimori (JPN ).

When she won the Boston Marathon in 1997 ( as the first African woman ), in its 1998 personal best time of 2:23:21 and 1999. During the Tokyo International Women's Marathon 1999, she was second and at the 1999 World Championships in Seville, she took 4th place in the marathon. In 2000, she ran the Boston Marathon in third place.

In 2001 she won the Madrid Marathon and the 2004 Millennium Nagano Marathon.