Women’s race at London Marathon will be harder to win than gold at Paris Olympics, event director Brasher says
- Sunday’s race will feature world’s fastest female marathoner, Tigist Assefa, and three of the four fastest women ever
- Assefa says she wants to break the course record, and organiser Hugh Brasher has ‘no idea who is going to win’
London Marathon event director Hugh Brasher is predicting a more competitive women’s race on Sunday than at the Paris Olympics this summer, and believes the women’s-only world record may fall.
The world’s fastest female marathoner, Tigist Assefa, headlines an elite field that features seven athletes who have run under two hours, 17 minutes and 30 seconds, including three of the four fastest women ever.
“No race in the history of our sport has ever had that,” Brasher said. “So I have no idea who’s going to win but I think it’s going to be an incredibly competitive event.
“This will be a harder marathon to win than the Olympic Marathon in Paris, I’m pretty goddamn certain of that.”
Assefa clocked 2:11.53 at the Berlin Marathon in September, setting the world record for women in a race alongside male runners, and is aiming to break Mary Keitany’s mark of 2:17:01 set in a women-only race at the 2017 London Marathon.
“I did train very well for Berlin and I have trained well for this one. God will show how good I am on Sunday,” Assefa said.
“I have prepared very well for this race and I am sure I can beat the course record here. As I am sure all my competitors here will feel as well. Regardless of whether it is London or Berlin, it will not change my strategy at all. I am here to win.”
The race has a lot to live up to after Sifan Hassan struggled in the early going last year, even stopping twice to massage her leg, before racing to victory in her debut at the 26.2-mile (42.2-kilometre) distance.
“It was the most spectacular race last year – I don’t think anyone had seen the eventual winner stopping mid-race and massaging their hamstring in a major race before,” Brasher said.
New York City Marathon champion Tamirat Tola, plus Alexander Mutiso Munyao, Dawit Wolde and Kinde Atanaw, headline a men’s race that is wide open in the absence of last year’s winner and world record-holder, Kelvin Kiptum.
There will be 30 seconds of applause before the start of the men’s race to celebrate Kiptum, who died in a traffic accident on February 12, at the age of 24.
Brasher said he was “99 per cent certain” the 44th running of the London race will be the biggest ever, with more than 50,000 finishers expected.
The event will make history as the first marathon to award equal prize money to able-bodied athletes and wheelchair racers, with a total prize pot of US$308,000 each, and the four winners in the elite races receiving US$55,000 each.
The weather forecast favours fast times, Brasher added, with temperatures expected to hover between 12 and 14 degrees Celsius (54-57 degrees Fahrenheit), although the winds along the Thames can be a factor.
Extreme runner Russ Cook will race on Sunday only two weeks after he became the first person to run the entire length of Africa. The 27-year-old Briton, who calls himself the “Hardest Geezer”, took 352 days to complete the African odyssey of more than 16,000 kilometres.
British ultra-runner Jasmin Paris, who last month became the first woman in history to complete the infamous 100-mile Barkley Marathons, will be the starter for the elite women’s race on Sunday.
