Press Release - Dubai Marathon - 1/24/15

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

              Women Set Records on Dubai's Superfast Course 

The Standard Chartered Dubai Marathon has impressively confirmed its 
position as one of the fastest races in the world. Winning times of 2:05:28 
from Lemi Berhanu and 2:20:02 by fellow-Ethiopian Aselefech Mergia are both 
world-class. While hopes for course bests did not quite materialise other 
records on this superflat course in Dubai were broken on Friday. In the 
past few years usually the men's race produced unique performances. However 
this time it was the turn of the women. 

Behind Aselefech Mergia another six athletes crossed the line with sub 2:23 
times. That had happened only three times in marathon history so far. There 
were seven sub 2:23 times in Dubai in 2012, in the World Championships' 
marathon in Helsinki in 2005 and in the 2014 Boston Marathon, where the 
course is not eligible for records. But it gets even more impressive: Never 
before have twelve women run under 2:25 in a marathon. With a time of 
2:24:44 Turkey's Sultan Haydar found herself in 12th position - however the 
time was still good enough to break her own national record! The enormous 
depth was not surprising since the field had unpresendented depth in a city 
marathon. 23 runners were entered with personal bests of sub 2:28. 

A world junior record was also broken on Friday. Fourth placed Shure Demise 
of Ethiopia clocked 2:20:59. Her coach Renato Canova later confirmed that 
he had checked her passport which states she was born in 1996. The 
youngster improved the old mark by more than one and a half minutes. 
China's Yingying Zhang was the former record holder with a time of 2:22:38 
from Xiamen in 2008.

The international athletics federation IAAF does not officially list world 
junior records, but among road running organisations they are a common 
feature. Dubai now holds both world junior records. A year ago Ethiopian 
junior Tsegaye Mekonnen won the race with 2:04:32.

More information is available at www.dubaimarathon.org

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