When Ethiopia barred its best distance runner from competing in the 2016 Olympics, many saw it as an act of ethnic discrimination. Another runner from the same ethnic group says he was exiled.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: If you are a betting person - and we're not endorsing this - but if you are, it's a safe bet that the gold in middle-distance running in this summer's Olympics will go to Ethiopia or Kenya. That's because those two countries dominate the 5K and the 10K. So it was a shock to the running world when Ethiopia announced its main national team will not include the world record holder in both those races. That's three-time Olympic champion Kenenisa Bekele. Bekele says he is being discriminated against because of his ethnicity. Bekele is Oromo. NPR's Gregory Warner tells us more about why other runners say ethnic discrimination casts a shadow over Ethiopian track.</s>GREGORY WARNER, BYLINE: The 23-year-old refugee I meet in Nairobi talks quietly as if to conserve energy. He's thin and nervous. But there's one name that can put a burst of joy on his face. That name - Kenenisa Bekele.</s>MOHAMED KEMAL: (Speaking Oromo).</s>GREGORY WARNER, BYLINE: In fact, you smile when I even say his name.</s>MOHAMED KEMAL: (Speaking Oromo).</s>GREGORY WARNER, BYLINE: This is Mohamed Kemal (ph). He's also a runner. And he was 16 years old in 2008 when Bekele won gold medals in the 5K and the 10K races in Beijing.</s>UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: And the awesome strength - the awesome, awesome speed. He's untouchable once again. It's a new Olympic record.</s>MOHAMED KEMAL: (Through interpreter) (unintelligible) Kenenisa is my role model. So always I'm thinking to be wise like Kenenisa.</s>GREGORY WARNER, BYLINE: Kemal pulls out papers. They're the finishing times for an Ethiopian half marathon in 2014.</s>GREGORY WARNER, BYLINE: So 1 hour 6 minutes 8 seconds - 86th.</s>GREGORY WARNER, BYLINE: Kemal's time put him in the country's top 100 that year. But before the race, he says, the coach of his running club had pulled him aside and told him to throw the race for another runner.</s>MOHAMED KEMAL: (Through interpreter) We have been told to make others too tired, but, at the finishing, to give the chance for the Tigrinya.</s>GREGORY WARNER, BYLINE: Give the chance to the Tigrean, he says. Kemal is not of the Tigrean ethnicity. He's Oromo.</s>MOHAMED KEMAL: (Through interpreter) I was discriminated because of I'm Oromo.</s>GREGORY WARNER, BYLINE: Kemal refused to throw the race. He was tired, he says, of being passed over for international sponsors or forced to pay bribes for the chance to run just because of his ethnic background. But after he finished so well in the race, the furious coach told him he'd be barred from future competitions.</s>MOHAMED KEMAL: (Through interpreter) After this, things become serious.</s>GREGORY WARNER, BYLINE: In November of last year, Ethiopia erupted in massive civil protest by Oromo, the country's largest ethnic group. And their complaints were various - that their ancestral land was being taken, that their children were discriminated against in education and employment. They said that Oromo who didn't adhere to the ruling party ideology were targeted. Thousands of Oromo were arrested, including Kemal. And when he was released, he snuck over the border to Kenya. At 23 he had chosen impoverished freedom over a running career.</s>GREGORY WARNER, BYLINE: So let me ask you - with everything that's happened to you, will you watch the Olympics? And if you watch it, will you be rooting for Ethiopia?</s>MOHAMED KEMAL: (Speaking Oromo).</s>GREGORY WARNER, BYLINE: Kemal's answer is complicated. A win for Ethiopia in Rio would reflect positively on a national athletics program that Kemal feels is rotten. And his role model, Kenenisa Bekele, won't be running. But the other Ethiopian runners are men and women that he knows and admires. How can he not cheer if they win?</s>MOHAMED KEMAL: (Through interpreter) When my colleagues won that's - that race, I become excited.</s>GREGORY WARNER, BYLINE: So you focus on the face and not on the flag?</s>MOHAMED KEMAL: (Through interpreter) Yes.</s>GREGORY WARNER, BYLINE: But of course the headline, if that happens, will be Ethiopia clinches another gold. Gregory Warner, NPR News, Nairobi.