Meet Girmawit Gebrzihair, a 16-year-old Ethiopian runner competing at the World Under-20 Championships in Tampere, Finland.
She recently won the bronze medal after coming third-place in the 5,000m race at the ongoing competition.
However, Girmawit who listed her birth date, November 21, 2001, is being ridiculed online by social media users including a Spanish athlete, Oscar Husillos who says she looks too old to be competing in an under-20 competition.
This is Girmawit Gebrzihair of Ethiopia, the bronze medalist in the women’s 5k at the @iaaforg World Junior Championships. She is “16 years old” ........ thoughts?
A third added: “Is there no other way of controlling these things apart from looking at a passport? It is hard to believe.”
Also taking aim at the runner was Spanish sprinter Oscar Husillos, 24.
He tweeted a picture of Gebrzihair with the caption, in Spanish, saying: “Her children and grandchildren are in the stands to see her run in the World U20 Championships.”
Husillos has since deleted the tweet and posted a string of messages saying it was taken “out of context” and his words had been “misinterpreted”.
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