That is the primary story on the RAK Half marathon by our buddy, Pat Butcher, the famed sports activities author behind globerunner weblog.
Dubai, Monday, Jan 15, 12.00gmt
STARS DESCEND ON RAS AL KHAIMAH ‘HALF’
Olympic girls’s marathon champion Peres Jepchirchir and final 12 months’s males’s winner, Benard Kibet are simply the primary two of what’s anticipated to be a constellation of stars on the Ras Al Khaimah Half-Marathon on Saturday, February 24.
Jepchirchir’s high quality is underlined not solely by her Olympic win in Tokyo but additionally by her three world half-marathon titles and the appreciable feat of being the one lady to concurrently maintain the Olympic, New York, and Boston marathon titles, which she achieved within the seven months between August 2021 and April 2022. For good measure, when she received this RAK ‘half’ in 2017, it was in a then-world report of 65min 06sec, which stays her finest time.
Her compatriot Kibet is one in every of many Kenyans who, over time, have been recruited to run on one in every of Japan’s company groups. He’s equally uncommon in being one of many diminishing numbers of athletes who mix monitor with highway operating. He’s a 13min 5000-metre runner and has a number of 10,000-metre clockings simply over 27mins. However his victory final 12 months in RAK in 58.45 put him within the prime ten for the 12 months.
Since its inauguration in 2007, the RAK race has proved to be one of many quickest half-marathons on the worldwide circuit. Ras Al Khaimah is among the smallest of the seven emirates which represent the United Arab Emirates. And, although the opponents can have different issues on their minds, the race is run across the spectacular seaside circuit on the attractive promontory of Marjan Island.
On condition that the RAK race is lower than six weeks away, that additionally means a fast turnaround for occasion organizers Tempo Occasions, who’ve been invited by the RAK Vacationer Growth Authority to take over the occasion within the wake of their profitable stewardship of the Dubai Marathon, whose newest version, simply final weekend, featured the quickest girls’s debut in historical past, 2.16.07 for Tigist Ketema of Ethiopia.
Race Director and Tempo Occasions CEO Peter Connerton mentioned in the present day, ‘We had been honored and enormously gratified to be invited by the Ras Al Khaimah vacationer authorities to arrange an occasion just like the RAK half-marathon. We really feel it’s a mirrored image of the success we’ve had with the Dubai Marathon since 2000. We’ve added a 10k to the RAK program since we’ve seen how profitable the shorter occasion has been in Dubai, both as a problem in its personal proper or as a stepping stone for runners on the way in which to a half or full marathon. Peres Jepchirchir and Benard Kibet are the primary of many main names we will be saying for the RAK ‘half’ within the coming weeks”.
