Ethiopian athlete Yomif Kejelcha set a new world record at the Valencia Half-Marathon.
Kejelcha, who also owns the world record for the indoor mile established in Boston last year, finished his race in a record 57 minutes and 30 seconds. The time clocked by the 27-year-old Ethiopian athlete was a second quicker than the record set by Jacob Kiplimo of Uganda in Lisbon three years ago.
In a social media post, Kejelcha said: “Thank you so much to Valencia for putting on a great race and helping me to break the world record and I’m so happy because the Valencia people helped me so much today for this record.”
He added: “I also want to thank my Coach and organizers for putting on a brilliant race today… Thank you also to my family for giving me great support over the years.🙏🙏… Adidas running my management all thank you 🙏 I really appreciate it.”
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Highlights of the race
Kejelcha, who was just running his sixth half-marathon, trailed the pacemakers in the beginning. He made his move at the three-kilometre mark and eventually got ahead of Kenyans Daniel Mateiko and Isaia Kipkoech to secure his win.
Despite being a two-time global indoor 3000m champion, Kejelcha only managed to place sixth in the 10,000-metre final at the Paris Olympics earlier this year.
In similar news, Agnes Ngetich of Kenya dominated the women’s race and moved to be the second in the world all-time rankings with a time of 63:04.
Source: BBC