New Delhi [India], September 12 (ANI): Defending champion Alemaddis Eyayu, alongside along with her Ethiopian teammate Jemal Mekonen, will headline the twentieth version of the Delhi Half Marathon, a World Athletics Gold Label Road Race, scheduled to flag off on Sunday.
Jemal Mekonen, a key member of Ethiopia’s victorious group on the 2017 World Cross Country Championships in Kampala, will headline the lads’s elite line-up on the Vedanta Delhi Half Marathon. Making his debut on Indian soil, the soon-to-be 29-year-old brings intensive worldwide expertise, together with a number of sub-60-minute finishes and a private better of 58:33, as per a press launch from Delhi Half Marathon.
Twice a fourth-place finisher on the World Half Marathon Championships in 2018 and 2023, Jemal Mekonen can also be the 2018 African 10,000m champion and the reigning Seoul Marathon 2024 winner.
Voicing his pleasure for the upcoming race in October, Jemal Mekonen mentioned, ‘It is my first go to to India. I’ve heard quite a bit in regards to the Delhi Half Marathon, which my fellow runners usually describe as quick and fabulous.’
In the lads’s class, main the cost from Kenya might be Benard Biwott, contemporary from his Paris Marathon victory earlier this 12 months. He might be joined by Paris Olympic 5000m silver medallist Ronald Kwemoi, making his half-marathon debut in Delhi, and their countryman Isaac Kipkemboi, who’s poised to mount a powerful problem for a podium end.
Among Ethiopia’s different notable entries is Birhanu Legese, who boasts a marathon private finest of two:02:48 and back-to-back Tokyo Marathon titles in 2019 and 2020. A well-recognized identify to Indian followers, Legese has beforehand secured podium finishes in Bengaluru, Kolkata, and Delhi. Strengthening Ethiopia’s problem additional are Bayelign Teshager and Melesse Birhan, each desperate to make their mark in Delhi.
The elite males’s discipline boasts as many as eight sub-60-minute runners, promising an exhilarating contest on the twentieth version of the Delhi Half Marathon.
In the ladies’s class, defending champion Alemaddis Eyayu will face robust competitors from Kenya’s Lilian Rengeruk, a a number of world cross-country medallist who completed fifth within the 10,000m on the Paris Olympic Games. Rengeruk is among the many prime ladies runners with private bests sooner than the Delhi course report of 1:04:46.
‘I’m very excited and searching ahead to being again in Delhi for the twentieth version of the Delhi Half Marathon 2025. Although it should not at all be a straightforward race, I look ahead to pushing myself and defending my title,’ Alemaddis Eyayu mentioned.
Former half-marathon world report holder and Gold Label athlete Ethiopia’s Ababel Yeshanesh, the second-fastest within the ladies’s discipline with a private better of 64:31, might be a key contender, together with Kenyan Catherine Amangole, the 2023 World Half Marathon bronze medallist.
With a complete prize purse of 260,000 USD, the Delhi Half Marathon will witness among the world’s most interesting athletes competing for prime honours. Offering equal rewards for women and men, the champions in each classes will take residence 27,000 USD, whereas the second and third-place finishers will earn 20,000 USD and 13,000 USD, respectively. Additionally, an occasion report bonus of USD 12,000 awaits any athlete who units a brand new benchmark.
‘It appears as if yesterday, however we already turned 20’, Vivek Singh, the Joint Managing Director of Procam International, referring to the 20 th version of the highest half-marathon race within the nation.
‘We want to thank all our sponsors, previous and current, and the supporters who made this attainable, in addition to the athletes who had been collaborating right here for elevating their achievement graph consistently upwards, as all the time’, he added additional. (ANI)