\nVenue:<\/strong> Larne <\/span>Date:<\/strong> Sunday, 28 August <\/span>Start:<\/strong> 09:00 BST<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n| Coverage:<\/strong> Live from 08:45 on the BBC iPlayer and BBC Sport Northern Ireland website<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n Yalemzerf Yehualaw returns to the Antrim Coast Half Marathon a year after seemingly breaking the women’s world record only to learn weeks later that the course had been 54 metres short.<\/span><\/p>\n“You don’t want to blame Covid but it certainly was a factor,” says McIlroy.<\/span><\/p>\n“The protocol is to measure the course twice but we were unable to do that.<\/span><\/p>\n“We couldn’t get anyone to fly here before the race to do the measurement [because of the Covid situation] so we had to do it post the race.<\/span><\/p>\n“The frustration is that with 50 metres short, if you add 10 seconds on, 65% of the elite race would still have run a personal best and Yalemzerf would still have been the first woman to run under 64 minutes. <\/span><\/p>\n“But she’s back again in good shape and the course is ratified and measured correctly.”<\/span><\/p>\nCourse even faster this year – McIlroy<\/h3>\nIndeed, McIlroy believes course tweaks this year could lead to Yalemzerf going even faster than the 63 minutes and 44 seconds she clocked last year – although the 23-year-old will have to go some to break the world mark of 62:52 set by compatriot Letesenbet Gidey in Valencia last October.<\/span><\/p>\nYalemzerf’s own time of 63:51 set as she finished runner-up that day remains the second fastest time in history but the 59 seconds to Gidey’s world mark is a huge amount – even in half marathon terms.<\/span><\/p>\nMcIlroy admits the UK all-comers half marathon record of 65:52 set by Kenyan Edith Chelimo in Cardiff five years ago will be a more realistic target for Yalemzerf and several of other leading ladies.<\/span><\/p>\n“We think we’ve made the course even faster,” added former Great Britain Olympic 800m athlete McIlroy.<\/span><\/p>\n“We’ve taken out the section in the harbour so we’ve taken out one tight turn and going around the roundabout clockwise instead of anti-clockwise should also help the athletes.”<\/span><\/p>\nWhile Yalemzerf, 23, will be a strong favourite, the presence of her compatriots and training partners Tsehay Gemechu [PB 65:08] and Gete Alemayehu [PB 66:37] should ensure that she has competitive company in the early stages as opposed to merely her male pacemakers.<\/span><\/p>\nLast year, Yehualaw finished more than six minutes ahead of Kenyan runner-up Vane Nyanamba.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/span><\/span>Jemal Yimer will aim to repeat his men’s victory from last year in Sunday’s race which starts and finishes in Larne<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n2021 men’s winner Jemal Yimer is also back in the Larne field and will again be the man to beat give his outstanding personal best of 58:33 set in 2018, which is 49 seconds quicker than the next fastest competitor, compatriot Tesfahun Akalnew.<\/span><\/p>\nYimer was three seconds outside Sir Mo Farah’s course record of 60:27 set in 2020 when he triumphed 12 months ago.<\/span><\/p>\nAkalnew finished one second behind his compatriot 12 months ago and is again back in the field along with last year’s third placer Shadrack Kimining of Kenya.<\/span><\/p>\nWith the field also including sub-60 minute men Ethiopians Huseydin Mohamed and Gizealew Ayana, organiser McIlroy is very optimistic that the one-hour barrier will be broken for the first time on Irish soil, with Geoffrey Kamworor’s UK all-comers mark of 59:10 from 2016 possibly also in danger.<\/span><\/p>\nEnglishman Marc Scott finished only five seconds behind Yimer in fourth spot 12 months ago and will be joined in the field by fellow British Olympian Callum Hawkins, whose has a half marathon best of exactly 60 minutes.<\/span><\/p>\nWith Ireland’s Tokyo competitor Stephen Scullion a late withdrawal from Sunday’s race, Irish male hopefuls David Mansfield and Paul O’Donnell will both be aiming to improve their respective personal best of 63:23 and 63:37.<\/span><\/p>\nThe women’s event could see a good domestic battle for top-10 finishes between Emma Mitchell, Fionnuala Ross and Northern Ireland Commonwealth Games competitor this summer, Hannah Irwin.<\/span><\/p>\nThe Eamonn Christie-coached Mitchell is the fifth fastest in the women’s field on lifetime bests behind the African contingent with a 72:28 mark set in Valencia in 2019, while Ross has clocked 73:08 and Irwin 73:23.<\/span><\/p>\nThe mass race in the event which starts and finishes in Larne will have around 6,000 competitors with McIlroy delighted to report “entrants from 19 countries this year”.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Yelemzerf Yehualaw appeared to have set a new world record at last year’s Antrim Coast Half Marathon but a course measuring error meant the time was not ratified Venue: Larne Date: Sunday, 28 August Start: 09:00 BST Coverage: Live from 08:45 on the BBC iPlayer and BBC Sport Northern Ireland website Yalemzerf Yehualaw returns to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1089,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1088"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1088"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1090,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1088\/revisions\/1090"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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