A significant personal best of 13:43.20 minutes over 5000 meters in Nijmegen in May 2011 marked the beginning of an improvement in Atelaw's running. After high-altitude training in Ethiopia, he returned to Europe and won the Lotto CrossCup Roeselare race. At the 2011 European Cross Country Championships he seized the lead after 2 km by increasing the pace and was never challenged thereafter, taking the gold medal five seconds ahead of runner-up Ayad Lamdassem. He was the top European behind Kenya's Isiah Koech at the Lotto Cross Cup Brussels meet later that month.