\\ New Delhi, 13th October 2018: Kenya\u2019s world half marathon record holder Joyciline Jepkosgei has been added to the women\u2019s elite field for the Airtel Delhi Half Marathon 2018 on Sunday 21 October, which brings about the mouth-watering prospect of a thrilling head-to-head contest with three-time olympic gold medallist Tirunesh Dibaba The pair have met twice before. Firstly, at last year\u2019s Ras al Khaimah Hal Marathon when Jepkosgei finished third and the Ethiopian legend was fifth; secondly in May this year at the Manchester 10km in Great Britain when Dibaba (whose participation in the ADHM 2018 has been previously announced) got the upper hand with a convincing win \u2013 31:08 to 31:57 \u2013 with the Kenyan runner in second place. However, Jepkosgei will come to the ADHM 2018 in fine form buoyed by a half marathon win over a classy local field in a high-altitude race in her native Kenya last Sunday (7 October). \u201cThe Airtel Delhi Half Marathon is my first-ever trip to India and so I am very much looking forward to visiting and also competing against, once again, Tirunesh Dibaba as well as the rest of the field of accomplished and confident women,\u201d said the 24-year-old Jepkosgei. Jepkosgei grabbed international attention in an emphatic way on several occasions during 2017. She set a world half marathon best of 64:52 in Prague in April last year and improved that mark by one second to 64:51 in the Spanish city of Valencia 12 months ago. Sandwiched between these two record-breaking half marathon outings, Jepkosgei also became the first woman to run under 30 minutes for 10km on the roads when she he ran a world record of 29:43 on her return to the Czech capital Prague in September 2017. This year has seen Jepkosgei compete in her first global championship and she returned to Valencia almost five months after her world record in the same city and placed second at the IAAF World Half Marathon Championships in March. Curiously, after her stunning successes of 2017 and despite running a series of fast times in the last nine months, Jepkosgei is still looking for her first international win of 2018 and that will provide her with extra motivation in Delhi. \u201cI am very excited by the prospect of seeing Joyciline and Tirunesh duel for supremacy in the capital city. Both women are coming here in great shape and an entertaining and engaging battle should be in prospect,\u201d commented Vivek Singh, joint managing director of race promotors Procam International. \u201cThe focus of attention will inevitably be on their head-to-head, but it also would be very unwise to ignore the rest of the elite women. We have already announced that there will be a very strong continent in the women\u2019s race coming from Ethiopia. \u201cWith the likes of 2016 ADHM winner Worknesh Degefa, Ababel Yeshaneh, Zeineba Yimer and Senbere Teferi on the start line we could very well see an upset which will make headlines around the world,\u201d he added. The ADHM women\u2019s course record has been standing since 2009 and belongs Kenya\u2019s Mary Keitany at 1:06.54. However, with the calibre of women in this year\u2019s race, many people will be watching the clock closely to see whether this long-standing mark will fall. This year marks the 14th edition of the prestigious IAAF Gold Label Road Race which is now one of the world\u2019s leading half marathons. All the leading runners, both men and women, will have their sights on first prize cheques of US$27,000 with a total prize money purse (combined men and women) of US$280,000. Unfortunately, Procam International have had to announce the withdrawal from the men\u2019s race of Eric Kiptanui. The Kenyan, who is the fastest half marathoner in the world this year, recently sustained a slight injury in training and is not back to full fitness. A similar situation has led to the withdrawal of Kenya\u2019s Caroline Kipkirui from the women\u2019s race.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\\ New Delhi, 13th October 2018: Kenya\u2019s world half marathon record holder Joyciline Jepkosgei has been added to the women\u2019s elite field for the Airtel Delhi Half Marathon 2018 on Sunday 21 October, which brings about the mouth-watering prospect of a thrilling head-to-head contest with three-time olympic gold medallist Tirunesh Dibaba The pair have met […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shasakprashasak.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shasakprashasak.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shasakprashasak.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shasakprashasak.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shasakprashasak.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shasakprashasak.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3563\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shasakprashasak.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shasakprashasak.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shasakprashasak.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}