Kenya’s Peres Jepchirchir’s women-only world half marathon record of 1minute 05:16s, set at the World Athletics Half Marathon Championships in 2020, has been ratified.
For the first time in history, the top six women all finished under 66 minutes in the same race, and the top three all beat Jepchirchir’s previous women-only world record mark of 1minute 05:34s which had been set in Prague just over a month before, on 5 September.
Conditions were cool and breezy on the morning of the race, which took place on a roughly 5.5km loop course featuring a seafront stretch, covered by athletes four times.
It was former mixed race world record-holder Joyciline Jep-kosgei who led a 13-strong group through 5km in 15:20s and a lead group of seven passed 10km in 30:47s.