RAS AL KHAIMAH HALF MARATHON: Alex Matata wins RAK Half Marathon, Ejgayehu Taye runs world leading time

RAS AL KHAIMAH HALF MARATHON

Alex Matata wins the RAK Half Marathon, and Ejgayehu Taye runs a number one time.

Alex Matata of Kenya had the most effective profession win within the 18th version of the Ras Al Khaimah Half Marathon early at the moment. However robust winds on an unusually cool morning in one of many smaller United Arab Emirates meant that Ejgayehu Taye’s try on the ladies’s world document could be blown off target, even when she had not began too quick.

The breeze and lack of a pacemaker to separate the sphere meant the lads’s race was comparatively sedate and over-populated within the first 10k, with 20 males nonetheless in rivalry at 28min 34sec. However there was no mistaking Matata within the pack, channeling Michael Jackson with a pink glove on his proper hand. ‘For wiping the sweat, that’s all,’ he defined afterward. However when colleague and race favourite Isaia Lasoi, who’d been sharing the lead with him, began feeling a groin pressure, Matata started to imagine the initiative.

Alex Matata wins the 2025 RAK Half Marathon, picture by Giancarlo Colombo for Ras AL Khaimah

‘I noticed at 14k that I used to be stronger than the others, so I believed I had a very good probability of successful,’ he stated. He raised the tempo such that the computed end exterior 60 minutes was quickly reworked, and his relentless front-running dropped each his rivals and the time, and he ended up taking 17 seconds off his private greatest with a win in 59min 20sec.

Lasoi hung in nicely and appeared to have second place sewn up, considerably when Gemechu Dida immediately dropped again with a kilometer to run. Nonetheless, the Ethiopian rallied and caught the Kenyan simply earlier than the road to get second and relegate Lasoi to the identical third spot as final 12 months. A stride might be pricey on this sport. Whereas Matata took residence $20,000, Dida’s last-gasp second place earned him $10,000, 4 thousand greater than Lasoi.

Matata is an outlier in Kenya, coming from the capital, Nairobi, as a substitute of the western highlands’ hotbeds of excellence; he’s additionally a comparatively late starter in his early twenties. However when he started operating nicely with a 61.03 clocking within the Nairobi half-marathon in 2021, he was persuaded to maneuver as much as Eldoret, the heartland of nationwide distance operating. Now at 27, a regime of 150 kilometers per week has seen him reworked into an everyday winner, with 4 victories and three sub-60min clockings in his 5 half-marathons final 12 months. And now, he’s given himself a New Yr’s current. However he’s not tempted to maneuver as much as the marathon but. ‘Not for 2 years. I nonetheless need to run sooner on the half-marathon, within the 58 minutes and perhaps 57 minutes.

Ejgayegu Taye, picture by Giancarlo Colombo for Ras Al Khaimah Half marathon

Within the ladies’s race, Ejgayehu Taye was so assured that she might run nicely that she even introduced her personal pacemaker, Wosinew Admasu. And a beginning temperature of 12C (54F) felt good till she headed into the wind. Though the anticipated contest along with her colleague Girmawit Gebrzihair didn’t materialize (the latter dropped out), issues went to plan for the primary 5 kilometers, which she lined in 14min 57sec. However the tempo and wind took their toll, and she or he fell additional behind her schedule. She was grateful to win 65.52, exactly three minutes exterior her goal time. ‘I used to be anticipating to run quick, even perhaps get the world document, however the wind was too robust; I felt it was pushing me again. However I’m glad to win’. Her time is a world lead for 2025.

Outcomes, Males:

1. Alex Matata KEN 59:20

2. Gemechu Dida ETH 59:25

3. Isaia Lasoi KEN 59:26

4. Chimdessa Debele ETH 59:28

5. Gerba Dibaba ETH 59:35

6. Nibret Melak ETH 59:45

7. Hillary Kipkoech KEN 59:53

8. Tesfaye Deriba ETH 59:56

9. Haftamu Gebresilase ETH 59:56

10. Mao Ako TAN 60:28

Ladies: