Bashir Abdi

Bashir Abdi (born 10 February 1989) is a Belgian long-distance runner. He won bronze medals in the marathon at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and 2022 World Championships and silver at the 2024 Summer Olympics. In doing so, Abdi became both the first ever Belgian world championship medal winner at the marathon and the first Belgian male athlete to win an individual medal at both the Olympic Games and World Athletics Championships. He claimed silver in the 10,000 metres at the 2018 European Championships. He finished second and third at the 2020 Tokyo Marathon and 2022 London Marathon respectively. Abdi is the European record holder for the marathon.

He also holds the Belgian records in the half marathon and one hour run, and the world best in the rarely contested 20,000 metres on track, as well as the Belgian national record for the marathon in the master M35 category.

Abdi was born in El Afweyn, Somaliland, a town mainly inhabited by the Habr Je'lo clan of the Isaaq clan-family. When he was eight, his family moved to Djibouti. He then spent a year and a half in Ethiopia, before settling in Belgium, where his mother had initiated a family reunification procedure after having received recognition as a political refugee. There, aged 16, he started training at the Racing Club Gent Athletics, following his brother Ibrahim. His mother always supported him being an athlete when no one else in his family would and when she died of cancer in 2011, on her last day, she impressed upon her children that as "this country has meant so much to all of you, be good people".

Abdi is married and has a daughter, Kadra, born 2018, and a son Ibrahim; born 2020. He is a co-founder and vice-chairman of the non-profit organization Sportaround, which organizes after-school sports activities for children in Ghent.

Abdi entered the 10,000 metres at the 2014 European Athletics Championships with the European-leading time set on 4 May. He finished fifth at the event.

In May 2015, he qualified for the 2016 Rio Olympics.

At the Games, Abdi competed in both the men's 5000 m and 10,000 m. He finished 20th in the 10,000 m final, the race won by Great Britain's Mo Farah.

In 2017, he competed in the London 2017 World Championships in Athletics in the men's 5000 m, placing sixth in his heat.