Selemon Barega has clocked 2:05:15 on his debut over 26.2 miles at the Seville Marathon.
The Tokyo Olympic 10,000m champion, who is sixth on the gloabl half-marathon all-time list with 57:50, was on for a sub-2:03 run but petered off in the last 10km.
Only 12 athletes in history have gone sub-2:03 in the marathon and, for a while, Barega was on course to join that list.
The Ethiopian went through half-way in 61:44 but struggled in the latter stages and his second half was 63:31, with the final 2.2km being at 2:24:30 marathon pace.
“First marathon, first win, first marathon wall,” Barega said. “See you soon with more experience for faster times!”
Barega first came to prominence when he won 5000m gold at the 2016 World Junior Championships in Bydgoszcz, before becoming the world youth champion over 3000m a year later in Nairobi.
The Ethiopian secured his first senior major gold medal in the 3000m at the 2022 World Indoor Championships in Belgrade. He has also claimed world indoor silver and bronze medals in the discipline.
Barega is a world silver and bronze outdoor medallist in the 5000m and 10,000m respectively but his greatest achievement came at the Tokyo Olympics, when he won gold in the 10,000m in the Japanese capital.
A number of athletes who have starred on the track have translated their skill to the roads.
The most recent example is Jacob Kiplimo, who set a world half-marathon record of 56:42 at the Barcelona Half last weekend.
Not only did Kiplimo take an incredible 48 seconds off Yomif Kejelcha’s world record, he also became the first human in history to run a sub-57 minute half-marathon.
Kiplimo and Kejelcha have respective 10km bests of 26:48 and 26:37, which compares to Barega’s 26:44.48 on the track.
Source: AW
