Written by Jaryd Clifford | Runner’s Tribe
Twenty years ago, in the mountains of Tigray, a young shepherd boy herded cattle for his family. The rugged terrain was this boy’s comfortable place, his first home. On April 27, that same young boy from rural Ethiopia will stand on the start line of the Hamburg Marathon. The life of Haftu Strintzos has traversed an incredible path from those long days in the mountains to being on the cusp of debuting over the most hallowed of distances. No longer a boy, Haftu has now cemented himself as one of the rising stars in Australian distance running after clocking 60:36 at the Marugame Half Marathon earlier this year. This hasn’t happened overnight, there’s been toil and heartbreak over the years, but also the love of community, an Olympic dream, and a declaration for Hamburg:
“I just want to go for it, go with the front guys, and see how long I can stick it out for.”
Haftu has requested a 63-minute pace group through halfway in Hamburg, a pace that if maintained would threaten the Australian record of 2:06:22 set by Andy Buchanan in Valencia last year.
This is his story.
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The type of resilience demanded by the Marathon has likely lived within Haftu since his very first steps. As is custom in the farming regions of northern Ethiopia, much of his childhood was spent in high altitude mountains looking after animals. The days were long, but for him this was all he knew.
“I was out in the mountains the whole day looking after cattle,” he says. “I ran around a lot, got used to the terrain. The childhood things you get used to. It was my comfortable state.”
In 2007, aged 8, Haftu met Maria Strintzos, an Australian aid worker and founder of the Hawzien Orphan Project assisting children in the Tigray region. After three decades volunteering around the world, she decided to take one more life changing step and become Haftu’s mum. After living for a year together in Addis Ababa, they moved to Maria’s childhood home of Melbourne. On the brink of his teenage years, Haftu suddenly found himself immersed in a world nothing like the one he knew before. Through all the challenges, it was running that fatefully helped make him feel more at home.
“When I got to Australia, running was a reminder of home. Running was a way of connecting to my childhood self. It was something that was familiar amongst all the unfamiliar things,” he reflects. “It was a way for me to connect with the people around me.”
Haftu rose through the junior ranks in Victoria representing Glenhuntly Athletic Club and Haileybury College. An array of state titles ensued before he fell 0.61-seconds shy of a 5000m berth at the 2018 World Under-20 Championships. He then took his running to college in the United States where he raced for Villanova University under the tutelage of Irish three-time World Indoor 1500m champion Marcus O’Sullivan and assistant coach Matthew Valeriani.
“College was challenging,” Haftu reflects. “I grew up a lot through the program. I got to find out what worked and what didn’t”.
Despite finding some success, particularly in cross-country where he placed 9th in the NCAA in 2021, his results often ebbed and flowed in a pattern perhaps symptomatic of the personal turmoil he experienced during those years.
On 3 November 2020, as the world was distracted by the United States Presidential Election and an unrelenting global pandemic, civil war broke out in Haftu’s homeland of Tigray. Over the next three years, an estimated half-a-million civilians lost their lives in the horrific conflict that left entire communities displaced, including many members of Haftu’s family.
“Looking back, it feels like a very bad dream,” he says. “I’ve got siblings and extended family in Tigray. That was a very, very difficult time for me. For two years, I had no idea if my family was alive or not.”
In between his training and studies, Haftu attempted to find back channels to communicate with his family. Late at night, he would trawl the internet for information, but as allegations of ethnic cleansing grew stronger, desperation did too. Although he didn’t know if his family was safe, he raised funds in the hope that he could eventually send it their way. Once his Villanova teammates realised the burden he carried with him every day, they too rallied around him and his family.
Even now, despite an official truce agreement, tensions in the region still flare up at times, and it remains a constant in Haftu’s life.
“Stuff like that, when your mind is not in it with running, and it’s always in the back of your mind, it was very difficult,” he says. “It definitely did influence my mental state and even the simplest tasks would become extremely hard. I had to put a lot of things aside when that was happening. But there’s no pause on anything in life.”
“I definitely didn’t think about quitting. I just thought of this as another big challenge. There’s always a light at the end of the tunnel,” he continues. “Running became an outlet for me. It helped me get my mind off things and to be present in the moment. I just kept trying to do the best that I could.”
More recently, Haftu has rocketed into the upper echelons of Australian distance running. The first glimpse of this came at the 2024 World Cross Country in Serbia where he placed 22nd as the first Australian across the line. However, it was his 60:36 Half Marathon in Marugame that truly caught the eye, catapulting him to third on the Australian all-time list.
For some, this result came as a shock. In the build up, Haftu had flown under the radar, but he knew that he was capable of something special that day.
“I knew that sub-61 was on the cards. [Marugame] was an opportunity not to be missed.”
When asked about comparisons to Australian marathon record holder Andy Buchanan and Australian half-marathon record holder Brett Robinson, two runners that had captured the running community’s attention in the lead up to Marugame, Haftu is quite assured.
“Let the results speak for themselves, “he quips. “My preference is to just get my work done in silence. I just want to focus on doing what I love doing and the process of getting better.”
This mindset speaks to Haftu’s calmness. It’s perhaps why he’s struggled sometimes with the chaos of the track. For some time now, the roads have beckoned.
“I’ve known for a long time that I’m more comfortable with the longer distances. It’s like a meditative state, I’m calmer when I’m out there,” he says. “You’ve got to have grit too. It’s something you build over the years. After going through tough times, I feel like I understand that. Again and again, if you love the sport and you love what you’re doing, you find a way back. It’s in our nature to bounce back and try again.”
As eyes now turn to Hamburg, Haftu has begun working with Team Tempo coach Adam Didyk and has officially signed on with ASICS, a partnership that has already paid dividends. As the big day approaches, the exuberant young runner has his sights locked on lofty goals. Although Haftu’s request for a pace-group to split halfway in 63-minutes awaits confirmation by race organisers, it demonstrates his ambition, and the mindset demanded of the modern-day marathoner. As the world record nudges two-hours, the definition of conservatism has shifted. Times that were once revered don’t cut it anymore and Haftu knows that. To be one of the greats, he must live by the sword and die by the sword if necessary, and that’s the plan in Hamburg.
“I just want to go with it, take the big risk. It could either come off good or terribly, I know. But I just want to go for it, go with the front guys, and see how long I can stick it out for,” he says. “I think Adam is a bit more cautious and we’ll aim for a pace I know I can maintain. I’m just excited to see where I stand and give it a go.”
Whether Haftu can pull off the dream debut or not, he’s all in on the marathon and Australian running has a new star on the rise.
Runner’s Tribe – About the Author:
Jaryd Clifford is a Paralympic medalist and world champion in middle- and long-distance running. Diagnosed with a vision impairment as a child, he has represented Australia on the world stage, winning medals at the Tokyo Paralympics and World Championships. Jaryd is also a highly accomplished writer, using his voice to advocate for inclusion and share powerful stories from the world of sport.
