Gebrezgi focuses on securing Irish place

MARY McKENNA, coach to Celtic Athletic Club, had left her telephone number with the Refugee Centre on the Navan Road in the hope that she might be able to help if anybody there was interested in athletics, but she was more than surprised when Sr. Breege Keenan rang her to tell her a girl called in and inquired about cross-country running.

Azmera Gebrezgi had come to Ireland with the junior women’s team from Eritrea for the world cross-country championships in Leopardstown in 2002 and, as well as seeking asylum, she wanted to continue her athletic career.

What has happened in the meantime has been sensational. She now remains unbeaten for almost a year. That defeat last year in the schools championships was at the hands of Linda Byrne (DSD) who was runner-up in the national junior championships in Roscommon on Sunday when Gebrezgi finished like a 400m sprinter. In between she has won 800m and 1,500m school titles on the track, AAI U18 and U19 cross-country championships and the national inter-counties title in Mullingar last November.

She is current Leinster schools champion and will be the odds-on favourite to win the Irish schools title in Ballyclare next month.

However, what she really wants now is an Irish passport and hopes are high that it will come in a matter of weeks if not days.

Hopefully that will be a major step towards getting her to Brussels to represent Ireland at the world championships in just over a month’s time.

“That will depend on the Eritrean federation,” said Mary McKenna. “Everybody wants her to run for Ireland and she wants to represent Ireland but they will have to agree to it at this point.”

Since joining Celtic AC she has been a model member and a model athlete.

“She has been an inspiration to the younger members of the club and she is just a wonderful person,” said her coach. “She has made a lot of friends and she just loves to compete. We have not seen the half of it yet. Right now she is studying for her Leaving Cert at St Dominic’s in Cabra and that is her priority.

“As a result she is training just three or four times a week ­ maybe 23-25 miles a week ­ and it will be interesting to see what happens when she gets down to serious training. We will just have to wait and see.”