By ELIAS MAKORI in Addis Ababa
The 24th edition of the Sofi Malt Great Ethiopian Run International 10-kilometre Road Race gets underway in Addis Ababa this Sunday with three-time winner Abe Gashahun back to one of his favourite hunting grounds.
Over 50,000 runners are expected to flood the streets of the Ethiopian capital, including a top contender from Kenya, three-time Eldoret City Marathon champion Victor Kipchirchir.
Last year’s Great Ethiopian Run winner Biniam Mehari
Kenya has also fielded an entry in the women’s race – Miriam Jelagat – with Kenya’s world marathon record holder Ruth Chepng’etich the chief guest at this weekend’s race alongside two-time Boston Marathon champion Moses Tanui, the first man to run a sub-one hour half marathon.
Chepng’etich broke Ethiopian hearts last month when she improved on Ethiopia’s Tigst Assefa’s world marathon record by running a jaw-dropping two hours, nine minutes and 56 seconds to become the first woman to run a sub-2:10 marathon.
In the process, she improved on Assefa’s previous mark of 2:11:53, set at last year’s Berlin Marathon, by about two minutes.
But despite the age-old Kenya vs Ethiopia athletics rivalry, the Ethiopians have rolled out the red carpet for Chepng’etich with Ethiopian Airlines handing her a surprise cake and champagne mid-air on her maiden visit to Ethiopia where she is held in extremely high regard in this athletics-mad nation.
Chepng’etich landed in Addis on Thursday night.
Abe Gashahun, a three-time Great Ethiopian Run winner, will be gunning for a fourth title this year
The Great Ethiopian Run – the brainchild of Ethiopia’s multiple World and Olympic champion and record holder Haile Gebrselassie - is gunning to become the world’s biggest 10km road race with this weekend’s entry of 50,000 runners a step in the right direction.
“We have partnered with several state agencies and ministries, including the Ministry of Tourism to make the Great Ethiopian Run a great experience indeed,” Race Director Dagmawit Amare told journalists attending a pre-race media training session at the Hyatt Addis Hotel on Thursday.
“Haile (Gebrselassie) passed it on, and we want to pass it on to the community and we want to make sure that there is continuity,” she added.
Victor Kipchirchir on his way to winning his third Eldoret City Marathon title
Race weekend starts with a children’s race on Saturday before the competition proper on Sunday.
The 26-year-old Gashahun is the only athlete in the race’s history to have won the race three times, winning the editions of 2016, 2020 and 2022.
Among his main opponents will be last year’s winner Biniam Mehari, who recorded the biggest winning margin in the race’s history 12 months ago, crossing the line in 28 minutes and 19 seconds, 28 seconds ahead of second place and less than one second outside the course record held by Deriba Merga from 2006.
Still only 17 years old, Mehari has since had a stellar year of results including a world junior record over 10,000m of 26:37.93 from Ethiopia’s 10,000m Olympic Trials in June and a 6th place in the Olympic 5,000 metres in August.
Coached by Hiluf Yihdego, husband and coach of Gudaf Tsegay, Mehari is coming back to competition for this race after a short break caused by an injury.
Two other 19-year-old athletes might try to upset the favourites.
The first is Yismaw Dilu who placed fourth in the 8km junior race at the 2024 World Cross-Country Championships in Belgrade.
Kenya’s world marathon record holder Ruth Chepng’etich speaks to veteran photojournalist Jiro Mochizuki at the Great Ethiopian Run pre-race press conference at the Hyatt Addis Ababa on Friday. Photo / Elias Makori
Although Dilu dropped out of the Olympic Trials 10,000m race this year, he placed third in the same selection race one year earlier in a best time of 27:08.85.
The second is the middle distance specialist Ermias Girma who won the World Junior 800m title in Columbia in 2022. Girma has a best time of 1:44.36 for 800m and 3:34.73 for 1,500m.
He made it through to the Olympic 1500m semi-finals in Paris this summer.
The women’s race might be harder to call.
One athlete to watch is the in-form Asayech Aychew who won the Dam to Dam 10-mile race in Amsterdam two months ago.
Her coach Tessema Abshiro believes that Aychew who won the silver medal in the junior six-kilometre race at the 2024 World Cross Championships now has the strength to outrun her opponents on the tough one-lap course.
It is, however, unlikely that the women’s course record of 31:15 set in 2021 by Yalemzerf Yehualaw will fall.
The top three finishers in the 2024 Safaricom Women First 5km (Guteni Shanko, Birunesh Dese and Mekdes Shimeles) are also competing.
Dese who is also coached by Abshiro stayed with the leaders in last year’s race and was only dropped in the race’s closing stages.
The race will again use a wave start for the 50,000 registrants, with the elite races starting just five minutes before the first wave of the masses.
One famous name among the masses will be Eamonn Coghlan, running as an ambassador for Goal, one of several development agencies who have international representation in the race.
This year’s race medals have a special design marking the 50th anniversary of the discovery in Ethiopia of Lucy, believed to be one of the oldest humanoids from four million years ago.
Reporting with resources from the Sofi Malt Great Ethiopian Run