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In his marathon debut, Sabastian Sawe clocked a world-leading time to claim victory at the 2024 Valencia Marathon, while Megertu Alemu also dominated in the women's category.
Sabastian Sawe and Megertu Alemu impressed at Sunday's Valencia Marathon, claiming wins in the men's and women's races respectively.
The men’s race started with a pack of runners looking comfortable and ready to take on the tough course. Passing the 10km mark, it was already evident that Ethiopians did not come to play in the race, as Sisay Lemma and Kenenisa Bekele ran in the lead.
Birhanu Legese and Deresa Geleta were also in the leading group, looking to make it an all-Ethiopian race. However, Kenyans did not disappoint as debutant Sabastian Sawe was also in the mix in the race, looking very comfortable and confident in his training.
Daniel Mateiko, after being unfortunate in a number of his marathons after making his debut last year, had also stuck with the leading pack with the hope of coming out with something good.
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Passing the 21km mark, the leading pack had remained unchanged with Sabastian Sawe looking very comfortable. Kenenisa Bekele was also looking poised with defending champion Sisay Lemma also in the lead.
Very interestingly, Kenenisa Bekele was dropped with Guye Adola now taking the lead, running behind the pacemakers. Sisay Lemma, Daniel Mateiko and Sabastian Sawe had also remained in the leading group.
Sisay Lemma was then dropped in the latter stages of the marathon as the pacemakers dropped off. Daniel Mateiko then took the lead and seemed to have learnt from his mistakes as he looked very poised, relaxed and very economical.
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Sabastian Sawe was running in third place but working very hard to close the gap between himself and Deresa Geleta. Sawe then came and overtook Mateiko who seemed to be struggling with Geleta also following keenly and taking second place.
Passing the 40km mark, Sabastian Sawe still looked comfortable as he ran a solo race with Geleta running a distant second. With just 2km of running, he still had a great lead and was heading for victory in Valencia.
His effort paid off well, showing great hope for Kenya’s marathon running as Sabastian Sawe crossed the finish line first ahead of Geleta as Daniel Mateiko rounded up the podium in the tight race. Sawe clocked an impressive 2:02:05 as Geleta and Mateiko clocked 2:02:38 and 2:04:23 respectively.
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Meanwhile, the women’s field was no different as the women looked very strong and were ready to attack the course record time of 2:14:58 set by Amane Beriso at the 2022 edition of the race. The Ethiopian duo of Megertu Alemu, and Tiruye Mesfin plus Uganda’s Stella Chesang were leading the group and dropping fast times in their splits.
Kenya’s Evaline Chirchir and another Ethiopian, Hiwot Gebrekidah were also in the leading group passing the 5km mark. The women’s leading group had more than 10 runners as they passed the 10km mark, a testimony of how strong the field was.
Passing the 21km mark in 1:01:18, about 12 runners were still running in the leading pack with multiple going for national records. The women looked comfortable running in the pack until the Ethiopian Alemu had enough and decided to run a solo race to the finish line.
She crossed the finish line in an impressive 2:16:49 ahead of Uganda's Stella Chesang who clocked a national record time of 2:18:26. Ethiopia's Tiruye Mesfin rounded up the podium in 2:18:35
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