Indisputably, the 2024 Valencia half marathon was arguably the most important half marathon race ever run this 12 months. It’s, nevertheless, onerous to inform which, between the lads’s and the ladies’s performances, have been the extra beautiful.
Ethiopia’s Yomif Kejelcha set a brand new world file of 57:30 within the males’s race. On the identical time, Kenya’s Agnes Ngetich led two different girls to a 2nd, 3rd and 4th quickest instances ever run within the girls’s half marathon operating historical past.
Whereas each races began out on a world file tempo, solely two girls went previous the five-kilometre level collectively, with Ethiopia’s Ejgayehu Taye offering firm to Ngetich as they crossed it in 14:38. They have been nearly twenty seconds forward of Kenya’s Lilian Rengeruk and Ethiopia’s Fotyen Tesfay and Tsige Gebreselama.
Ngetich, who holds the ladies’s 10K world file at 28:46, and Ejgayehu would undergo the 10K mark in an unimaginable 29:18. Nonetheless, that will need to have harm the 2 as Taye, the previous 5K world file holder and 2023 10,000m world bronze medalist, quickly started to falter. Ngetich’s tempo additionally began to gradual.
Ngetich was clear forward, however most likely hurting from the onerous tempo earlier within the race as she got here in to cross the end line in 1:03:04. Fotyen Tesfay of Ethiopia overtook Taye on her option to coming second in 1:03:21 forward of Kenya’s Lilian Kasait additionally overtaking Taye to complete third in 1:03:32. Taye would end fourth in 1:04:14.
“I’m actually joyful, and so proud that I achieved the second quickest time ever on my debut. Valencia will at all times have a particular place in my coronary heart as a result of it’s the place I set my world file within the 10km,” Ngetich mentioned after the race.
The quick tempo within the males’s race noticed six runners survive by the primary 5 kilometres. Half of those males went previous the 10K mark that was crossed in 27:12. Kejelcha managed the tempo on the entrance whereas Kenya’s Daniel Mateiko and Isaia Kipkoech Lasoi gave the impression to be hanging on.
At 15K, the 2019 Doha 10,000m world silver medalist started to open up a spot on the 2 Kenyans, who appeared glad to lastly let him go as they settled on a slower tempo behind him.
Kejelcha was greater than 45 seconds forward on the end line as he set the brand new world file, beating the earlier certainly one of 57:31 set by Uganda’s Jacob Kiplimo on the Lisbon Half Marathon in 2021 by one second.
Mateiko completed second in 58:17 forward of Lasoi, who accomplished the rostrum at 58:21.
