Shami Abdulahi Dawit (born 16 July 1984) is an Ethiopian long-distance runner who specialises in marathon races. He won the 2012 Hamburg Marathon in a course record time and has a personal best of 2:05:42 hours for the distance.
A late-comer to elite level athletics, his first appearance in a European race came at the 2009 Marathon des Alpes-Maritimes, where he came seventh in a time of 2:14:09 hours.[1] He ran on the Italian road circuit in 2010, coming eighth at the Rome City Marathon before making a breakthrough at the Carpi Marathon, where he reached the podium for the first time (his time of 2:09:50 hours bringing him third place).[2]
Shami proved himself adept at the half marathon distance in June 2011 as he won the Olomouc Half Marathon, beating the more favoured Eliud Kiptanui, in a personal best run of 1:00:44 hours.[3] He was among the leaders for most of the 2011 Rome City Marathon and fell back to third in the final stages, although he managed a personal best run of 2:09:42 hours.[4] He came close to stopping Kenneth Mburu Mungara from winning his fourth straight Toronto Waterfront Marathon as both runners recorded a time of 2:09:51 hours, but it was his Kenyan counterpart who crossed the line first.[5]
The 2012 Dubai Marathon in January had one of the fastest fields in the history of marathon running, and Shami improved significantly on the fast course to record a personal best of 2:05:42 hours.[6] He finished seventh overall and progressed into the top-40 on the all-time rankings.[7] Three months later he won his first major race at the Hamburg Marathon and his time of 2:05:58 hours was a new course record for the German competition.[8] He was a little slower (2:08:39) on his third outing of the year, the 2012 Chicago Marathon, and he only just made the top ten.[9] A year passed until he next competed, when he managed fourth at the 2013 Amsterdam Marathon with a run of 2:08:02 hours.[10] He placed third at the Toronto Waterfront Marathon in 2014, but his career ceased thereafter, with his only other performance being a failure to finish at the 2017 Venice Marathon.[11]