Tariku Jufar

He has won the Beijing, Beirut and Houston Marathons and has had top-three finishes in Istanbul, Mumbai, Los Angeles, Lake Biwa and Hamburg.

Born in Debre Zeyit in Ethiopia's Oromia Region, he took up running after seeing the success of Haile Gebrselassie at the World Championships and Olympic Games.

He represented Ethiopia in the half marathon at the 2007 All-Africa Games, coming eighth, and he ran a personal best of 61:28 minutes for 18th place at the 2007 IAAF World Road Running Championships.

[8] Tariku Jufar led for the early stages of the Mumbai Marathon in January 2008 and held on to take second place behind Kenya's John Kelai.

[14] Tariku had mixed results in the 2010 season: he returned to Los Angeles and came seventh in a time of 2:11:49 hours, but was some six minutes slower at the Florence Marathon, where he came fifth.