The winner of this year's Boston Marathon, Ethiopian runner Lelisa Desisa, says he will return his medal to the city to honor the victims of the April bombing.
Desisa met Sunday with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry at the U.S. embassy in Addis Ababa. He said "sport should never be used as a battleground."
The Ethiopian athlete said he will return next year to run in the marathon as a gesture of his solidarity with the victims of the bombings. He said returning to Boston will show that the commitment to freedom is stronger than any act of violence.
The twin blasts near the Boston Marathon finish line April 15 killed three people and wounded more than 260. A Chechen-born suspect is in federal custody. His brother, also suspected of the blasts, was killed in a police shootout.
Thousands of runners who were stopped short because of the bombings ran the last kilometer of the course Saturday to symbolically finish the race.