Meselech Melkamu is an Ethiopian distance runner who has excelled across cross country, the track, and the marathon. Born in Debre Marqos in the Amhara Region on April 19, 1985, she first broke through as a junior, winning the 5000m title at the 2004 World Junior Championships and the junior race at the 2004 IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Brussels.
On the track she became one of the most consistent Ethiopian distance runners of her generation. In June 2009 she ran 29:53.80 for 10,000m in Utrecht, breaking Tirunesh Dibaba's African record and becoming one of only a handful of women to dip under 30 minutes for the distance. She took silver in the 10,000m at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin and earned multiple bronze medals at the World Cross Country Championships between 2006 and 2010. She also collected a silver medal in the 3000m at the 2008 World Indoor Championships in Valencia and finished seventh in the 5000m at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Melkamu moved to the marathon in the early 2010s and made an immediate impact. On her debut in Frankfurt in October 2012 she ran 2:21:01 to win the race and set a course record, instantly placing herself among the fastest marathon debutantes in history. She went on to win the Daegu Marathon in 2015 and claimed both the Hamburg Marathon and Amsterdam Marathon titles in 2016, cementing her reputation as one of Ethiopia's most versatile distance runners.