They hadn’t even reached kilometer 3 and Yomif Kejelcha couldn’t believe it. The Ethiopian looked left and right and was all disbelief. The hares, the two hares that the organization had put in place to try to beat the half marathon world record (57m 31s by Ugandan Jacob Kiplimo), had collapsed resoundingly. They didn’t last even nine minutes of racing. So there were only two options: let the opportunity slip away or take a step forward. And Kejelcha, fire in his legs, stood at the head of the group and began to shoot. Sometimes he would slow down a little to see if a colleague would give him a relief, but when he realized that no one wanted to collaborate and that he ran the risk of straying from the ideal pace, he accelerated again. His daring, driven by an insulting state of form, led him to beat the world record by one second (57m 30s). He had to push until the last meter.
The Valencia half marathon already holds two world records. The Ethiopian Letesenbet Gidey achieved the women’s title in 2021, on a sunny and tremendous morning in which she won with a time of 1h 02m 52sand Kejelcha achieved the men’s title this Sunday after a marvelous display, an 18-kilometer monologue, on a rainy and gray morning. The versatile Ethiopian athlete, who holds the world record for the mile, made a sharp attack when they entered a curve at kilometer 15. Because the half marathon looked a lot like a Formula 1 race because of the rain.
The athletes had to decide in the warm-up whether to take the chance with the most modern and most reactive shoes, but with a more slippery sole, or opt for a less comfortable model. fast but more stable. Irene Sánchez-Escribano, the woman from Toledo who was emboldened in Parisafter improving her personal best twice in the 3,000m steeplechase, and decided to debut in the half marathon, ended up slipping and falling to the ground due to a bad decision when she had caught Laura Luengo and Kaoutar Boulaid and the three were thrown towards the Spanish record at kilometer 18. It was taken by Boulaid (1h 8m 47s), a Moroccan athlete who has just become a Spanish national and who snatches the record from Luengo (she had 1h 9m 41s), who came in second, three seconds ahead of Sánchez-Escribano, who recovered from the fall and closed his debut in 1h 9m 10s.
Kejelcha, 27 years old, a 1.87m athlete who slouches inside his down jacket, explains that he had to open up in the curves to avoid slipping, but that he was convinced that he could go under 58 minutes and that he did not lose faith in no moment. At two minutes and 43 seconds each kilometer. His time at 5 (13m 38s) and 10 (27m 12s) reinforced his conviction that this year, unlike last year, when he let him escape because Kiwibott Kandie was there and he was watching himself, he was going to be the good one. His year, with a best time in the 5,000m, 10,000m and half marathon, has been fantastic. Already at the press conference, dry and hot, he meditated on his demonstration of power to reach a conclusion: “Why not run next year in 56 minutes?”
At her side, with long legs and a long neck – the ‘giraffe’, her representative calls her – and also long white and green nails, Agnes Ngetich reaffirmed her decision to face a suicidal pace – she passed kilometer 10 in 29m 18s, a mark that only three other women in history have surpassed, including her, in a race exclusively of 10 kilometers—which she paid later, in the last quarter of the race, when she ended up deflating to let slip a world record that she had at your fingertips. The Kenyan, a woman who supported her family, her mother and her seven siblings, working very hard on a farm after her father died when she was 10 years old, had to settle for the second best world record of all. the times (1h 3m 2s) in an exceptional race in which third (Fotyen Tesfai) and fourth (Lilian Kasait) were also achieved.
Thierry Ndikumwenayo was three seconds behind Carlos Mayo’s Spanish record (59m 39s a year ago in Valencia). His ambition to go for the European record meant that he was left without a prize. The complete opposite of Kaoutar Boulaid, a woman who escaped from the Moroccan national team in 2010 and settled in Cantabria. First in Torrelavega, where she lived caring for the elderly, and now in El Astillero, eight kilometers from Santander, where she runs without a coach, like the new marathon world record holder, Ruth Chepngetich. This long-distance runner competed for Morocco in the Rio Games and then spent five years out of work due to plantar fasciitis for which she could not find a solution. He underwent surgery twice in Madrid and ultimately recovered in 2021. Now he wants to return to Valencia on December 1 to run the marathon. Before that, he will return to Imouzzer Kandar, to his village in the Atlas Mountains, to prepare at 1,800 meters above sea level. Some days he runs 25 kilometers to reach Ifrane, 25 kilometers away, where the athletics track is. “I’m afraid to run in my town because there are dogs and it’s dangerous to go alone, that’s why I like to go to Ifrane or have someone accompany me.”
