Selamawit Teferi

Selamawit Teferi was born in 1994 in Addis Ababa

Selamawit Teferi was born on 24 March 1994 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to a non-Jewish family. She grew up in Ethiopia and began training as a runner at age 13.

In 2012 she met the Israeli runner Marhu Teferi at a training camp in Ethiopia. They married in Ethiopia in 2017, and she moved to Israel with him. She received Israeli citizenship through her marriage after facing difficulties over her non-Jewish background. The couple lives in Kiryat Ata and has 2 daughters.

She trained with Maccabi Tel Aviv under coach Dan Salpeter and later moved to coach Tesema Abshiro in 2021. She won Israeli titles at 800 meters in 2017 and at 1,500 meters in 2019 and 2021. She set Israeli records at 5,000 meters, 1,500 meters and the indoor 3,000 meters.

In July 2019 in Kortrijk, Belgium, she ran 5,000 meters in 15:08.39, a national record that met the Olympic standard. At the Tokyo Olympics she set a new Israeli record of 14:53.43 in the heats and finished 10th in the final. She and her husband were the first married couple to represent Israel at the Olympics.