William Nyarondia Morwabe was both able to claim the victory at this year’s Telenor Copenhagen Marathon and improve the race record by almost one minute.
With a previous personal best of 2:16,00, Morwabe’s triumph was indeed a major surprise.
“I did expect to run well – but not that well. I actually had no tactics before before I pushed the pace at 34 km. But I’m just so proud to win here today,” Morwabe said after the race.
At first sight, a race record was not in sight. A group of ten runners led the race and split halfway at 66:13 minutes. At 28 km, Collins Kipkorir Cheboi, Kenya, then pushed the pace with only three runners able to keep up with him.
Then, six kilometres later, 26-Years-Old Morwabe put in an effective attack, leaving the three other runners in the leading group behind, and within short time he had established a gap of more than ten seconds and Morwabe went on to win the race in 2:11,16 and improve the race record by 54 seconds.
At 35 km, the leading runners was even inside a new Danish All Comer’s record (2:10,37), but the warm and sunny conditions in the streets of Copenhagen (24 Celcius) proved to be anything but optimal.
Abraham Girma, Ethiopia, was runner-up in 2:11,30 while Paul Waveru Chege, Kenya, set a personal best of 2:12,25 to take third place.
Amazing times in the women’s race
In the women’s race, Shasho Inmersu of Ethiopia took a solid lead early in the race.
However, she struggled to maintain the gap of a mere 15-20 seconds, and Bette Chepleting, Kenya, and Tesfanesh Terga, Ethiopia, were a constant thread all the way.
Despite the warm conditions taking it’s toll, Insermu held the lead to win the race in 2:32,17, which was a little more than two minutes off her PB set in Ljubljana last year.
At the same time, Insermu’s winner time was the second best in race history! So even if we didn’t see a race record this year, it was very close.
Runner-up Betty Chepleting clocked 2:32,42 to take second place, while Tesfanesh Merga of Ethiopia finished third in a time of 2:33,04. A very
9,120 runners participated in the Telenor Copenhagen Marathon, which will be able to celebrate it’s 40th anniversary next year.