Bejiga and Abreha deliver an Ethiopian double triumph at the
2026 tRUNsylvania 10K
Brasov, Romania, 4 October: Ethiopian runners dominated the 2026 tRUNsylvania 10K with Khairi Bejiga and Asefu Abreha coming home victorious in the Romanian city of Brasov on Sunday (4).
Bejiga, still just 20, became the first runner – man or woman – to win back-to-back titles in the six editions of the tRUNsylvania 10K with a dominant performance almost from gun to tape.
He led the 12-strong leading group through the first half of the race in 13:32, then kept the tempo high with successive sixth and seventh kilometers of 2:42 and 2:40, which led to several runners drifting off the back of the pack.
Five men were still together just after 8km – Bejiga, his compatriot and training partner Nibret Kinde, fellow Ethiopian Ayele Tadesse, Kenyan’s Bett and Ugandan’s Kiprop – passed in 21:44, but a couple of hundred meters down the road there was drama as Kiprop, one of the race favorites, tripped and fell before stumbling home 11th
Despite the distraction, Bejiga kept up his remorseless pace at the front. A ninth kilometer of 2:41 saw Bett, and then Tadesse, slip back and out of contention for the win.
However, reigning Ethiopian 10,000m champion Kinde refused to throw in the towel in the battle for the $5000 first prize.
It took until the final two hundred meters for Bejiga, arms pumping like an 800m runner, to finally put daylight between himself and Kinde, with the pair crossing the line in 27:01 and a big personal best of 27:02, respectively.
“I was hoping the first half of the race was going to be quicker, but nobody wanted to go faster,” said Bejiga through an interpreter, who repeatedly indicated that others should help with the pace. “I was looking for a course record and personal best [which, coincidentally, are the same time of 26:51].”
After finishing full of running, Bejiga is now focusing on running a very quick time at the Valencia Half Marathon on 25 October, having only one outing over the distance in a rather modest 1:02.04.
Tadesse took 30 seconds off his best in third place with 27:10, while Bett was just two seconds shy of his best with 27:13.
Further back, Hani Idriss Herso set a Djibouti national record of 27:13 in fifth place. In contrast, France’s Françoise Benhammou notably set a European U18 best of 28:39, taking 14 seconds off the previous mark, when coming home 18th.
Another Ethiopian clean sweep of the podium came a little earlier in the morning in the women’s race but, instead of one of the race favorites taking the honors, another 20-year-old, Asefu Abreha, pulled off an upset win.
Abreha came to Brasov with little international experience, although she had taken the African Championships 10,000m bronze medal earlier in the year.
Her only previous 10km on the roads was a modest 31:32 in challenging conditions in Bengaluru, India in April.
However, she looked like a seasoned veteran as she came home ahead of many more experienced runners with strong race credentials, crossing the line in a massive personal best of 30:16.
A relatively slow first half of the race, partially thanks to the cool conditions with the temperature only 8 degrees Celsius when the gun was fired – with 3km passed in 9:06 and then 5km in 15:11 – meant that from the early stages of the race the course record of 30:07 seemed unlikely to be beaten.
Seven women went through 5km together, but over the next kilometer Abreha and her fellow Ethiopians Aynadis Mebratu and 19-year-old Yenenesh Shimket started to edge away from their rivals.
Mebratu pushed the pace from 7km onwards in a bid to shake off her compatriots, but it took until the trio entered the last kilometer for Shimket to start to struggle.
As Shimket got detached, Abreha decided it was time to throw down the gauntlet to Mebratu before producing a decisive second surge with around 200 meters to clinch victory.
Behind Abreha, Mebratu came home second in 30:19 while Shimket took third in a world U20 10km best of 30:21.
After the leading trio, national records came from DjiDjibouti’smia Hassan Nour and South Africa’s Ilya Kavanagh in fourth and fifth, respectively; the latter ran her own race, 18 seconds back from the leading group at the halfway mark, with the pair clocking 30:37 and 30:50.
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Full results of the elite races at the 2026 tRUNsylvania 110 K, a World Athletics Elite Label Road Race, are available here.
The English-language live stream of the race is available to watch again via the European Athletics YouTube channel:
www.youtube.com/@EuropeanAthletics/streams
The tRUNsylvania 10K is one of the most prestigious and fastest 10km road races in the world.
It forms part of the two-day Brasov Running Festival, which sees approximately 3000 runners of all ages participate in community-focused children’s events, trail-to-road races, and national-level road races over various distances.
The famous Brasov Running Festival has taken place annually since 2021 against the backdrop of the spectacular Carpathian Mountains and near the center of the historic and picturesque Transylvanian city, which traces its origins back to the 13th century.
Further details of both the 2026 tRUNsylvania 10K and Brasov Running Festival can be found via the event website:
