The City of Ankara has until today, been the only capital city in the world without a road race event despite a population of over 6 million. Today thanks to the individual efforts of Victoria Blyth (Founder) supported by the RunCzech team, Ankara hosted its first ever major road race – the Ankara Half Marathon.
Set around the city center in the city in glorious conditions. The inaugural event had 4,000 entries with a carefully selected elite men and women’s fields.
Victor Mutai set the early pace on men’s side while Julius Kipchumba was in charge on the women’s. The leaders in men’s race were going through 10km in 29:27 then over a hilly course a small group of six broke away. After 32 minutes gaps began to appear with 5 of the 6 breaking free going through 12 km in 38:05.
Chimdessa Debele and Sisay Lemma were away with just over 20 minutes left to run then joined by RunCzech Racings’ Vinicent Nyageo. Lemma continued to push hard to get away, with Debele hanging on. After 51 minutes Lemma finally got away and with 3km to go maintained the pace to keep the lead rewarded with a first place finish in with Chemdessa Debele in second and 21 year old Vincent Nyageo in the third place.
In the women’s race Sultan Haydar, a former Ethiopian now running under the Turkish flag, went through 10km in 32:01 (67:30 pace) along with Zewditu Gelaw and Roselidah Jepketer. Gelaw the pre-race favourite then took the lead and placed her stamp on the race crossing 15km in 47:48. Running a strong last 6 km she finished in 68:28 to take first place with Haydar in second and Kosgai coming through to take third.
Very successful at its first staging Runkara is an event which is sure to go from strength to strength finding it’s place on the international road racing calendar.
Results
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