Agnes Ngetich seconds shy off world half marathon record in Valencia

Kenyan long-distance runner Agnes Ngetich on Sunday narrowly missed out on the women’s world half marathon record in an impressive win on her Valencia Half Marathon debut.

Already a world record holder for the 10 km run by a woman in a mixed-gender race, Ngetich looked prime to beat Letensebet Gidey’s world half marathon record of 1:02:52, only to fall 12 seconds short, taking her win in 1:03:03.

Her time however, was the second-fastest performance in history, and comes months after she also came close to breaking the womens-only 10km record in a frenetic finish at the Adizero: Road to Records race in Herzogenaurach, Germany.

Adizero 10K: Agnes Ngetich narrowly misses women's only record in win

Then, Ngetich missed the late Agnes Tirop’s record of 30:01 by two seconds, coming home in 30:03, after starting out well, but fizzling out late.

That was the same case in Valencia, as the 25-year-old went through 5km in 14:38 with Ethiopia’s Ejgayehu Taye on her shoulder, both of them well clear of Kenya’s Lllian Rengeruk (14:55) and the Ethiopian duo of Fotyen Tesfay and Tsige Gebreselama (14:57).

Ngetich and former world 5km record-holder Taye continued their 2:56/km pace to reach 10km in 29:18 – a time that only three women have ever bettered for that distance – but Taye began to lose ground about seven minutes later.

Meanwhile, Ngetich continued running behind the two pacemakers but her speed also started to decrease as she covered the next 5km segment in 14:57.

Her pace dropped to 3:00/km, suggesting that the world record was slipping away, but she continued to pull away from her opponents.

Taye, meanwhile, was overtaken by Tesfay and Rengeruk before 18km.

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Ngetich, running on heavy legs, managed to hold on to victory in 1:03:04.

Tesfay bettered her previous best by five minutes, clocking 1:03.21 for second place, with Rengeruk taking third in 1:03:32.

It meant the podium finishers moved to second, third and fourth respectively on the world all-time list.