{"id":34421,"date":"2026-05-13T16:33:59","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T14:33:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=34421"},"modified":"2026-05-13T16:33:59","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T14:33:59","slug":"athletics-mourns-death-of-ethiopian-marathon-runner-melese","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/athletics-mourns-death-of-ethiopian-marathon-runner-melese\/","title":{"rendered":"Athletics mourns death of Ethiopian marathon runner Melese"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The athletics community is mourning the death of Yebrgual Melese, who has died at the age of 36 after reportedly falling ill during training in Addis Ababa.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Melese had been preparing for the Ottawa Marathon later this month when she suffered a medical emergency. Reports say she was rushed to hospital but could not be saved.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The Ethiopian Athletics Federation expressed \u201cdeep sorrow\u201d following her passing and extended condolences to her family, friends and supporters.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Melese was one of Ethiopia\u2019s accomplished long-distance runners, with victories at the Houston, Shanghai and Prague marathons during her career.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>She had been regarded as one of the leading contenders for the Ottawa Marathon scheduled for May 24.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;ChannelAfrica&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":34422,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-34421","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"The athletics community is mourning the death of Yebrgual Melese","published_date":"2026-05-13 16:32:06","news_description":"The athletics community is mourning the death of Yebrgual Melese","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/34421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/34421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34423,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/34421\/revisions\/34423"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=34421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}