Jepkosgei takes 12 seconds off the Cardiff Half record as Kenya wins both races
Joyciline Jepkosgei ran 1:05:40 in Cardiff for a course record that had stood since 2017. Gideon Kiprotich won the men's race in 59:34.
Photograph: Joyciline Jepkosgei at the 2017 Prague Half Marathon, by Luzifiga, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia CommonsJoyciline Jepkosgei won the Cardiff Half Marathon on Sunday in 1:05:40, a course record. The old mark was Edith Chelimo's from 2017, and Jepkosgei took 12 seconds off it.
She made her move with three miles to go, around Roath Park Lake, and held it back into the city centre. Ethiopia's Wede Kefale was second in 1:05:54 and Tigist Tesema third in 1:07:23. Jepkosgei is a former world record holder at the distance, and she ran like someone who remembers it.
Gideon Kiprotich made it a Kenyan double in the men's race, winning in 59:34. He dropped Yismaw Dillu of Ethiopia around nine miles and finished 44 seconds clear. Dillu ran 1:00:18 for second and kept one thing: his own course record of 59:22 survived. Jonah Rutio was third in 1:01:13.
Why it matters
Cardiff is the fourth round of the SuperHalfs series and it was the race's 23rd running. A women's record that lasted nine years went on a day when the men's record didn't, which tells you how well Jepkosgei ran it.
A half marathon under 66 minutes is 5:01 a mile for thirteen miles. Most of us would take that for one.
Sources: Athletics Weekly; World-Track.
