Cheroben and Jepkosgei, the fastest runners in 2017, seek another record in the Valencia Half-Marathon

The Valencia Trinidad Alfonso EDP Half-Marathon, a trial classified by the IAAF as a ‘Gold Label’ event, will feature a line-up of top athletes on the 22nd of October. This will be exactly a year after the records for this distance were spectacularly broken in both the men’s and women’s trials.

Indeed, the fastest man and the fastest woman in 2017 will seek to break their records in Valencia — The Running City. The bevy of top international athletes includes two Half-Marathon runners: Abraham Cheroben and Joyciline Jepkosgei. One should note that the gold-medal athletes on the starting line are drawn from twelve nations from around the world.

The men’s event will also feature Stephen Kosgei Kibet, winner of the 2016 trial and who will therefore wear the ‘Number 1’ bib. There will be ten athletes whose personal records are within an hour of Kibet’s record in Valencia, including Abraham Cheroben, who has just won the Copenhagen Half-Marathon, running the distance in just 58 minutes 40 seconds. This time beats his personal record in Valencia in 2014 (58 minutes 48 seconds), which is still the record for the Valencia circuit).

Other runners who have turned in star performances over the last year include Vincent Rono (59:27 in Prague 2017), Mustapha el Aziz (59:29 in Valencia 2016), Justus Kangogo (59:31 in Ostia 2017), and ‘The White Pearl’ of New Zealand, Jack Robertson (60:01 in Lisbon 2017). All these will be accompanied by ‘gold’ athletes drawn from ten countries. It should be noted that in 2016, no fewer than five runners beat the time for the Valencian Half-Marathon.

Jepkosgei, the fastest woman in the world, will run in Valencia

In the women’s event, the big draw in the Valencia Trinidad Alfonso EDP Half-Marathon is Joyciline Jepkosgei, a world record-holder with a time of 1:04:52, achieved in Prague in April this year. Jepkosgei is the first woman to run the 10-kilometre distance in under 30 minutes (29:43 in Prague 2017).

She will be accompanied on the start line by the Ethiopian runner Worknesh Degefa Debele (1:06:14 in Prague 2016) and the Kenyan Fancy Chemutai (1:06:58 in Prague 2017), all of them with faster times than our record for the Half-Marathon (1hour, 7 minutes, 9 seconds) — set by Peres Jepchirchir (who will soon have a baby). These form a group of gold-class athletics drawn from six countries.

Abraham Cheroben will be accompanied by his own team, who will act as pacemakers during the race to help him set a new record. Joyciline will also bring her own team with her. She is in excellent form as the 2017 running season draws to an end.