The autumn marathon season gets underway this Sunday at the 50th edition of the Berlin Marathon. This is the first marathon major since the Olympics and the fields are looking strong.
Last year we saw a World Record of 2:11:53 in the women’s race by Tigst Assefa who is not starting this year but there is a strong contingent of former track athletes who have made the jump to the marathon. The quickest on paper is Ethiopia’s Tigist Ketema who up until this year was a track specialist but made her marathon debut in January winning Dubai in 2:16:07 which was the fastest ever marathon debut and places her 6th all time. She hopes to go through the half in around 68 minutes.
Genzebe Dibaba is the second quickest entry and a former 1500m World Champion who still holds World records over various middle and long distance events on the track. Dibaba ran her marathon PB of 2:18:05 in Amsterdam back in 2022 but is motivated to run the record breaking course in Berlin stating “I saw Haile Gebrselassie run two world records in Berlin on TV and since then I’ve always wanted to run in Berlin…Now the time has come. It would be a success for me if I ran a personal best”.
In total 10 women have dipped under the 2:22 mark with Germany’s Melat Kejeta leading the European entries followed closely by Britain’s Calli Hauger-Thackery whose personal best is 2:22:17 ran in New York last year. She did not finish the Paris Olympics marathon earlier in the summer but has shown strong form recently by claiming the UK 5km road title and finished second at the Big Half in London.
Fellow Brit Sonia Samuels (2:28:04) is entered and with a recent 74:50 clocking at the Great North Run, at age 44 she is showing that age is just a number. Also racing is British social media personality, Phillipa Bowden, who is aiming to improve her 2:29:14 PB after an altitude training camp in Flagstaff.
The men’s race has been won on multiple occasions, often in World Record times, by Eliud Kipchoge in recent years. He does not return this year but leading the entries is Tadese Takele from Ethiopia who finished third last year and is hoping to build on that performance. He says his training has been going well and expects to run a strong race which will hopefully see him improve his PB of 2:03:24.
The field includes former World half marathon record holder Kibiwott Kandie (57:32) from Kenya who boasts a marathon PB of 2:04:48 set in Valencia last year. With such depth and 14 men with PBs under 2:06, it is going to be an exciting race.
The Elite field will start at 8:50am (CEST) / 7:50am (BST) on Sunday the 29th September followed by the Para athletes and then the Masses. The online streaming platform, FloSports, will be covering the event for UK viewers with coverage starting at 7:30am BST.
