Regular convention suggests that anyone who wins a medal at the prestigious Olympic games, be it bronze, silver or gold, returns to his/her home country as a hero and is welcomed with lots of cheers, love, accolades and congratulatory messages. Well, not in the case of Ethiopian runner Feyisa Lilesa, who won the silver medal in the men’s marathon but did not board the flight back to Addis Ababa from Rio de Janeiro in fear of a backlash over his gesture of protest against the political oppression in the country.
According to a report in the Guardian, Feyisa Lilesa was not on board for the flight back to Addis Ababa along with other members of the Ethiopia’s Olympic contingent. Furthermore, Ethiopian officials did not talk about Lilesa’s medal and refrained from answering any questions about him as well. Lilesa, one of the country’s eight medalists, made a protesting gesture at the finish line of the marathon against the Ethiopian government.
The gesture of crossing his arms above his head was Lilesa’s way of criticising the government’s actions in the region from where he belongs. Oromo, the Ethiopian region in question, had witnessed a rather violent crackdown on protests and the runner decided to show solidarity with the victims and criticise the government’s action during the finish of the marathon.
Following this incident and his medal winning heroics, the Ethiopian government clearly stated that Lilesa is under no danger of getting hurt and will get a hero’s welcome upon his return. However, from what it seems, Lilesa does not want to take any chances and decided to seek asylum in another country, preferably United States of America. His agent, Federico Rosa, spoke to New York Times and said “He doesn’t want to go to Ethiopia, he wants to go to another country. I don’t know even when he decided to do this.You don’t do something like this for money. He did this to defend his country.”
The 2016 Rio Olympics concluded on 21st August and Ethiopia ended up with eight medals, which included one gold, two silvers and five bronze. Lilesa was particularly spectactular during the men’s marathon and finished second behind Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge, who was the best runner by quite some distance, literally. The protest staged by Feyisa Lilesa and his reaction following that reflects the political scenario existing in African nations and the kind of regimes in power.
