Athletics

Hiko Tonosa on regaining his Irish marathon record: ‘I know I can run faster again’

Peter Lynch recently broke Tonosa’s record, but Ethiopian-Irish runner targeting World Championships in Tokyo in September

Ireland’s Hiko Tonosa in the European Athletics Championships in Rome in June 2024. Photograph: Morgan Treacy/Inpho
Ireland’s Hiko Tonosa in the European Athletics Championships in Rome in June 2024. Photograph: Morgan Treacy/Inpho
Fri May 16 2025 - 06:00

Trouble can come at you from any direction when training for a marathon, and for Hiko Tonosa it began with a small gash down the side of his right leg. Two weeks out from an attempt on his own Irish marathon record in Rotterdam last month, Tonosa thought little of it, trusting his state of prime physical and mental fitness.

It didn’t help that Tonosa was at a faraway training camp at about an 8,000ft altitude on the outskirts of Addis Ababa, where the rarefied air is known to maximise the lung-bursting distance runs. The camp is organised by his new Ethiopian coach Gemedo Dedefo, whose athletes includes Tamirat Tola, who won the Olympic marathon in Paris last August, clocking an Olympic record of 2:06:26.

Tonosa was targeting the 2:09:42 he set winning the national title and finishing third in the Irish Life Dublin Marathon last October; the 29-year-old has been an Irish citizen since 2020, having first sought asylum in Ireland from his war-torn village in Ethiopia in 2017. Dedefo reckoned Tonosa was in around 2:07:30 shape.

They were just finishing up a track session when Tonosa slipped on the curve, briefly falling to the track, promptly blaming his worn-out runners for the mishap. There was no immediate pain or scarring, so he simply got on with things.

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“When I got home, I just put some ice on it,” he recalls. “When I woke up in the morning, my leg was like blob. I was crying, I talked to my coach, said ‘I want to cancel this race’. But I was also thinking, if I miss Rotterdam, it’s my last chance to qualify for the World Championships.

“So then I went to the hospital, and the infection closed [sic] all my leg and bone. The doctor gave me an injection, and after 48 hours, then I got better. But still I wasn’t running, just walking. The week before the race I did only one session, some speed, then focused on Rotterdam. I had the power, I had everything, but I couldn’t push. My leg was not relaxed.”

Despite the painful and potentially costly setback, Tonosa still ran 2:09:52 in 12th place, just 10 seconds off his Irish record, and within reach of the World Championships marathon in Tokyo in September.

Olympic marathon champion Tamirat Tola and Hiko Tonosa training in Addis Ababa
Olympic marathon champion Tamirat Tola and Hiko Tonosa training in Addis Ababa

Then two weeks later, in the Düsseldorf Marathon on April 27th, Peter Lynch broke his Irish record when running 2:09:36 to finish third, and with that breaking the Irish men’s marathon record for only the fifth time in 45 years.

As it turned out, both times were good enough to earn their Tokyo selection, with Tonosa and Lynch both confirmed by Athletics Ireland earlier this month, along with Fionnuala McCormack, who qualified thanks to her lifetime best of 2:23:46 in Seville last December.

For Tonosa, the chance to train in Ethiopia under Dedefo brings him back to his roots, although it’s no nostalgia trip. He fled his small Rastafarian town of Shashamane, in the highlands of Ethiopia, due to the oppression and brutalisation of his native Oromo people, later spending almost two years in direct provision in Ireland before eventually securing his legal status.

[ Dublin Marathon: Hiko Tonosa runs fastest marathon by an Irishman to finish third ]

He still has no shoe or gear sponsor but, by his own admission, his Dublin Marathon performance further changed his life (he earned $5,000 for third, another €5,000 for breaking 2:12, plus €3,500 for being top Irish finisher). For 2025, he received the Sport Ireland international grant of €18,000.

“Dublin changed my life a lot. Especially who I am. The people know me because I ran cross-country, and track, but Dublin was like the start of my life. I found my dreams in Dublin. I can’t explain how much Dublin helped me.”

Tonosa says he was “100 per cent certain” Lynch would break his marathon record in Düsseldorf, knowing the reputation of that course. “I’m very happy for him, very excited, because we don’t have that many endurance athletes at the moment, so we need to bring each other on, work hard, get better and better.

“We are going together to the World Championships, so I say good luck to him. But I know I can run faster again.”