Berhanu Girma Degefa (born 22 November 1986) is an Ethiopianlong-distance runner who competes inroad running events forCanada. His personal best for the marathon is 2:06:09 hours and he was the 2012 winner ofGrandma's Marathon.
Berhanu made his debut over themarathon distance in 2009, competing at theCasablanca Marathon and finishing fifth with a time of 2:15:57 hours.[1] His next outing at the 2010Valencia Marathon saw a three-minute improvement to 2:12:51 hours.[2] He was also fifth at theKošice Peace Marathon that year.[3] He fared less well in 2011, coming 19th at thePrague Marathon and 13th at theTwin Cities Marathon, barely managing to dip under two hours and twenty minutes that year.[4]
Berhanu was only 20th at the 2012Marrakech Marathon but later set personal bests in thehalf marathon (61:54 minutes inBarcelona) the marathon, the latter in a winning time of 2:12:25 hours atGrandma's Marathon.[5] He set a10K run best of 28:46 minutes at theCorrida de Langueux, where he was eighth.[6] He was also the runner-up at that year'sTwin Cities Marathon.[7]
He was further down the rankings in his first two marathons of 2013, coming 14th at theTiberias Marathon and eighth at theChongqing Marathon,[4] but he made a surprise breakthrough at theAmsterdam Marathon with a performance of 2:06:09 hours to finish runner-up to the defending championWilson Chebet.[8]
In 2019, he was the 11th finisher at theDaegu International Marathon inDaegu, South Korea. His time was 2:14:50.[9]
