Helen Bekele Tola

Helen Bekele Tola was born in Ethiopia. In 2005, she moved to Geneva, Switzerland.^[2] Tola is married to Tesfaye Eticha, who competed for Switzerland at the 2012 Summer Olympics.^[2]

Tola competes for the Stade Geneva athletics club.^[3] In 2015, Tola won the Lausanne Marathon,^[4] and the Basler Stadtlauf [de], a 5.9 kilometres (3.7 mi) race around the city.^[5] In 2016, Tola won the Annecy Marathon, breaking the course record by over three minutes.^[6] In the same year, she came second at the Lake Maggiore Half Marathon in a time of 1:15:37.^[7] In 2017, she won the Barcelona Marathon in a course record time of 2:25:04. It was over four minutes better than her previous personal best.^[8][9] In the same year, she won the Switzerland Marathon light [de] half-marathon event in a course record time of 1:09:47.^[10] In 2018, Tola came second at the 10 km Corrida de Houilles race,^[11] sixth at the Berlin Marathon,^[12] and ninth at the Ras Al Khaimah Half Marathon.^[13]

In 2019, Tola finished second at the Tokyo Marathon, in a personal best time of 2:21:01.^[12][14] She also finished fourth at the Berlin Marathon,^[2] and was in the leading group of four racers, alongside eventual winner Ashete Bekere, Mare Dibaba, and Sally Chepyego Kaptich, for most of the race.^[15] She finished in 2:21:36, 25 seconds slower than her personal best.^[16] Later in the year, Tola won the 17.7 kilometres (11.0 mi) Murtenlauf [de] race from Murten to Fribourg in a course record time of 57:50. She broke Franziska Rochat-Moser's 22 year old previous record by over a minute.^[17][18][19] She also won the 10 km race at the Lausanne Marathon,^[2] the 10 km San Silvestre Vallecana, in a personal best time of 30:47,^[14] and the Scalata al Castello 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) race in Arezzo, Italy.^[20]

In 2020, Tola won the Madrid 10k Run, beating pre-race favourite Ruth Chepng'etich. She finished in 30:50, the fourth fastest ever time at the event.^[21] Later in the year, she came second at a Berlin 10k invitational event; her time of 30:59 was the fifth fastest time of the year.^[22] She also won the 10,000 metres event at the Swiss Athletics Championships as a guest runner,^[23] and came fourth in the one hour run race of the Memorial Van Damme Diamond League event.^[24] Tola has also won the road race at the Escalade de Genève on four occasions.^[16] Tola expressed a desire to represent Switzerland at the 2020 Summer Olympics.^[2]

In 2021, Tola won the Belp Marathon.^[25] Later in the year, she came third at the 2021 Berlin Marathon,^[26] finishing behind fellow Ethiopians Gotytom Gebreslase and Hiwot Gebrekidan.^[27][28] She came ninth at the 2021 Tokyo Marathon.^[29]

• Media related to Helen Bekele Tola at Wikimedia Commons
• Helen Bekele Tola at World Athletics