Amanal Petros stood in Birmingham’s Victoria Square, the German flag draped over his shoulders and the gold medal resting on his chest. Eleven months after narrowly missing out on a World Championship title in Tokyo, the 31-year-old had just won his first major marathon.

After roughly 25 of the 42 kilometers, Petros picked up the pace on an incline, breaking up the lead pack. No one could keep up with him. He was able to savor the victory during the final 2 kilometers. He crossed the finish line in 2:09:11 — a record time for the men’s marathon at the European Athletics Championships.

“My goal was to wrap things up early,” Petros said afterwards. “That worked out perfectly.”

The fact that Italian runner Pietro Riva finished just seven seconds behind him hardly reflected the commanding nature of the victory. “I had everything under control,” Petros added.

Late arrival

Issues entering the United Kingdom meant Petros didn’t arrive in Birmingham until Saturday — the day before the race. Media reports indicated there were difficulties with his electronic travel authorization.

“It took a very, very long time; it was awful. We were traveling back and forth for two days,” he recounted. The German Athletics Association (DLV) helped resolve the issues.

The following day, a course featuring eight laps, inclines and numerous turns awaited the runners. Petros had spent months preparing for the event at altitude in Kenya.

“120 turns, the climbs. It was a huge challenge,” he said after the race. Then Petros dedicated the gold medal to his mother.

“She is my queen and my source of strength,” he stressed. “Thinking of her gives me new energy and motivation. She is simply the best.”

His mother lives more than 5,000 kilometers (3,107 miles) away in the Tigray region of Ethiopia.

Coming to Germany alone at 16

Petros was born in the Eritrean port city of Assab in 1995. As a young child, he fled with his family — escaping the war between Eritrea and Ethiopia — to Tigray in northern Ethiopia. He grew up there with his two younger sisters. Beginning at the age of 5, he worked in the fields and tended to the animals.

Petros left Ethiopia alone at the age of 16, arriving in Germany in early 2012. He was initially housed in accommodation for asylum-seekers. His mother and sisters remained in Tigray.

In late 2021, due to the conflict in the region, Petros went more than two months without any contact with them.

“It’s very hard,” he told DW at the time. “Sometimes I sleep poorly and have bad dreams. But I try not to give up hope.”

Running helped. “If I were to give up my sport, I would have lost everything,” Petros said. “I’ve already lost my family, and then I would have lost the last thing I have left.”

The situation in Tigray weighed on his mind even during races.

“I think about my family all the time,” Petros said in 2021. While running, he tries to block out those thoughts and focus on the sport.

Talent discovered on the football pitch

Shortly after he arrived in Germany, Petros started playing football, but a club official noticed his pace and hooked him up with a local athletics club. In June 2012, just months after his arrival, Petros ran his first 10-kilometer race, winning by around two and a half minutes.

Getting acclimatized to a hew country wasn’t so easy. 

“Learning the language was a major challenge,” Petros told DW back then. “But understanding the German mentality was an even bigger one.”

He was naturalized in 2015, although at the time immigrants were usually required to wait eight years to become eligible for German citizenship. At the 2021 Olympic Games in Japan, he competed for Germany in the marathon for the first time.

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In the years that followed, Petros moved closer to the international elite. In December 2025, he ran a time of 2:04:03 in Valencia, setting a new German marathon record. Another German record followed in March at the Berlin Half Marathon, where he clocked 59:22 minutes.

Near miss at Worlds

Just how close Petros had come to the world elite was evident at the World Championships in Tokyo in September 2025.

Picking up the pace with 350 meters to go, he was the first to enter the stadium and, on the home straight looked like the new world champion. But Alphonce Simbu of Tanzania passed him in the closing meters of the race. Both were clocked at 2:09:48. The photo finish decided the outcome: Petros missed gold by 0.03 seconds.

“As a professional athlete, I simply have to accept that and look ahead,” Petros said afterwards. With silver, he secured Germany’s first World Championship medal in the men’s marathon since 1983.

“Achieving this is a huge deal for me, especially for my family, for my mom,” he said after the race. He planned to send her videos of his run. “Hopefully, I’ll be able to bring her to Germany for a competition someday.”

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Running talent from Ethiopia

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Now, 11 months after that photo-finish loss in Tokyo, Petros has savored his first major international title in Birmingham.

“The race was incredibly, incredibly hard,” Petros said. “But a bit of red wine will get me back on my feet quickly.”

And just how much is “a bit”?

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“Oh, you know, one, two, or three glasses.”

This article was originally written in German.