NYRR Media Center

Maru Teferi, the Israeli record-holder in the 10K, 15K, 20K, and half marathon, will make his TCS New York City Marathon debut this year. In August, he won a silver medal at the World Athletics Championships marathon, becoming the first man from his country to win a medal at the event.

Teferi ran his personal-best marathon of 2:06:43 last December in winning the Fukuoka International Marathon in Japan. He is a two-time Olympian, having competed for Israel at both the Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020 Olympics. His 13th-place finish in Tokyo was the best-ever for an Israeli marathoner at the Olympics, and he and his wife, Selam Teferi, became the first married couple to represent Israel at the Olympics.

Teferi won a silver medal at the European Athletics Championships Marathon in 2022, and held the Israeli marathon national record until February, when it was broken by Gashau Ayale.

Born in Ethiopia, Teferi made Aliyah to Israel with his family when he was 14. His mother had passed away when he was only 8; he and his father immigrated to Israel while three of his older brothers stayed back. He went to an integration center, where he studied Hebrew and eventually moved to an all-boys school, where an Israeli coach noticed his running talent. Teferi met his now-wife, Olympian Selamawit Dagnachew, while training in Ethiopia in 2012, and the couple now live in the Haifa region of Israel, where they train together.