Tachlowini Gabriyesos

Tachlowini Melake Gabriyesos (born 1 January 1998) is an Eritrean-born long-distance runner. He lives and trains in Tel Aviv, Israel, where he runs with the Emek Hefer club and is supported by an International Olympic Committee (IOC) Refugee Athlete Scholarship. He has competed over 3000 metres, 5000 metres, 10,000 metres, the half marathon, and the marathon. He finished in 16th place at the 2020 Olympics.

Early life and background
Tachlowini Melake Gabriyesos is the second of seven children. He and a friend fled Eritrea in 2010, at just 12 years of age, to escape escalating violence. Tachlowini said: "a lot of people at the time were leaving Eritrea, and we were just thinking together that we wanted to go to another place, where we could live like human beings and have opportunity". Soldiers began barging into houses in search of people to fight in the army. Tachlowini did not have the heart to bear this.

So, the young boys lightly packed their belongings and took off on the two to three days long walk through the savanna to Ethiopia, where other large groups of Eritreans were migrating.

There, Tachlowini contacted an aunt of his, who also abandoned Eritrea, over the phone. She invited him to join her at her location in Israel and gave him instructions to turn back toward Sudan. Much earlier on, she had entered Israel by paying Bedouin traffickers to bring her on a ferry to the Israeli border. Similarly, Tachlowini went from Sudan to Egypt with the very same human traffickers, carried on a small truck alongside 20 to 30 people. Then, they crossed the Sinai Desert into Israel. Tachlowini witnessed the traffickers abuse, exploit, and commit unspeakable acts of violence against other refugees. He constantly feared that they would return him to Eritrea or kill him as well.

Settling in Israel
Upon his arrival, Israel officials classified Tachlowini as an asylum seeker and sent him to a detention facility meant for holding unaccompanied minors. There, at the Holot centre, they processed and medically checked him. He was entered into the Hadassah Neurim Youth Village, a boarding school north of Tel Aviv that is a safe haven for at-risk youth as well as children from low socio-economic backgrounds. Immigrants from Ethiopia and the former Soviet Union comprise over half of the student population. The school offered a running programme that he participated in and led him to his current coach, Alemayu Faloro. .

Tachlowini completed school at Hadassah Neurim—where many of the kids nicknamed him Louie—and is now allowed to legally reside in Israel at the Youth Village with his adoptive family. He and his aunt speak every month or so, however, he still has little communication with his parents back in Eritrea. They talk every four or five months because of internet challenges that make it difficult for them to connect more frequently from their village.

Tachlowini wants to earn his Israeli citizenship and represent the country by the 2024 Olympics in Paris, France.

2019: World Championships
Tachlowini was selected as one of six athletes to compete for the Athlete Refugee Team (ART) at the 2019 World Championships in Doha, Qatar, where he ran in the 5000m. Prior to the event, while he was traveling, he was delayed for 27 hours at the airport in Turkey due to problems with his visa. He finished 34th in the trial heats. The hassle at the airport had an effect on his performance that day.

2020
In October 2020, he was selected to represent the Refugee Team in the World Athletics Half-Marathon Championships in Gdynia, Poland. However, visa issues got in the way again, and he could not travel. Two months after that disappointment in Poland, he ran a half-marathon personal best of 1:02:21 at Gan HaShlosha National Park in Israel.

2021: Olympics
On 14 March 2021, Tachlowini ran the Olympic marathon qualifying time of less than 2:11:30. He did so in 2:10:55 at Hula Lake Park in Israel and became the first refugee athlete to clock a qualifying standard for the Olympics. It was only the second time he ever competed over that distance.

He was subsequently selected as one of 29 athletes across 12 disciplines to represent the Refugee Olympic Team (ROT) at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, Japan. Additionally, he was awarded the honour of being the flag bearer for the team during the opening ceremony of the games.