Eyeru Tesfoam Gebru | |
Fullname: | Eyeru Tesfoam Gebru |
Birth Date: | 10 December 1996 |
Birth Place: | Aksum, Tigray Region, Ethiopia |
Discipline: | Road |
Role: | Rider |
Amateuryears1: | 2018 |
Proyears1: | 2019–2020 |
Proyears2: | 2023– |
Eyeru Tesfoam Gebru (; born 10 December 1996) is an Ethiopian professional racing cyclist, who currently rides for UCI Women's Continental Team .[1] [2] She rode in the women's road race and time trial at the UCI Road World Championships in 2017, 2018 and 2020. She competed in the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris for the Refugee Olympic Team.[3]
Gebru was born in Aksum and is Tigrayan. At 16, she joined the local Ketema Axum Cycling Club. The following year, she relocated to Tigray's cycling capital Mekelle, where she was selected for the Messebo Sement Factory Cycling Club's women's team.[4]
The Tigray War broke out in 2020. Gebru was separated from her mother and lost some of her friends and family. When a route was opened up between Mekelle and Addis Abbaba in 2021, Gebru fled. She arrived in France in August 2021 ahead of the World Championships in Belgium, but did not to show up in protest as "I did not want to represent my country because it would have been supporting the genocide of my people". She was granted asylum in July 2022,[5] and has since lived in Nice and near Nancy.[4]