To date, the fabulous time of 59:49 achieved by the winner of the first ever Mattoni České Budějovice Half Marathon remains unbeaten.
However, this year’s group of elite athletes not only promise to deliver fast times, but they will also attempt to smash Daniel Chebii’s fantastic time recorded in 2012. Along with the fifth fastest half marathon runner of all time, Abraham Cheroben, two other men in the field are already familiar with breaking the magical one hour limit.
Abraham Cheroben attracted the attention of the whole athletics world when he won the Valencia Half Marathon in a super-quick time of 58:48. He missed the world record of Zersenay Tadese from 2010 by just 25 seconds and became the fifth fastest half marathon runner of all time. After winning the race he said confidently: „ I was targeting a world record today. I’m convinced I can break the 58-minute barrier for the distance.“ This year, he proved he is in good shape in the prestigious BIG 25 Berlin defending his victory from last year.
With a runner capable of running the 21.0975 km in 58:48, České Budějovice can look forward to very fast time. But Abraham Cheroben most certainly won’t be alone battling it out for a record. He could well be challenged by John Kiprotich (59:23) or Ethiopian runners Ayale Abshero (59:42) and Abera Kuma (1:00:19). Aside from these three a further five men with times under 61 minutes will be at the start line. “České Budějovice has yet to see such a fantastic start pack. If the weather conditions are right, we could witness an assault on the race record, currently held by Daniel Chebii,” reveals a hopeful Jana Moberly, manager of the elite athletes.
For the women, the fastest to entrant is Rose Chelimo from Kenya who has been in great form this year. She triumphed at the half marathon in Lisbon with a new personal best of 1:08:22. She will face competition from Ukraine, Belarus, France and Japan.
You can watch the live broadcasting on 6 June from 6:45 p.m. CET online on www.runczech.com.
