Ethiopian runners Manazot Siyum Taferi and Yatane Kormoshe Dusha won the 43rd Athens Marathon (አቴንስ ማራቶን) in Greece on Sunday, November 8. Manazot won the men’s race in 2 hours, 10 minutes and 3 seconds, a new course record. Yatane won the women’s race in 2:30:04 in her first marathon, a new race record. Ethiopians took first and second place in both races, according to results published by Watch Athletics.
A Close Finish in the Men’s Race
Asefa Tefera Mengisa was second in 2:10:18, 15 seconds behind the winner. Patrick Kiplagat of Kenya was third in 2:11:22. The race runs 42.195 kilometers from the town of Marathon to the Panathenaic Stadium in central Athens. Nearly 25,000 runners started the marathon, Hellas Journal reported.
Manazot passed halfway in 1:06:50 and 30 kilometers in 1:35:02. The two Ethiopians separated from the other runners after 35 kilometers. The win was decided in the last kilometer, the Greek news site Pelop.gr reported. The site also said a tailwind helped the runners.
His time took 31 seconds off the old record of 2:10:34, which Edwin Kiptoo of Kenya set in 2023. Asefa also finished faster than the old mark. Adane Nega, another Ethiopian, was seventh in 2:17:30.
Manazot said after the race that he was very happy to come and win in Greece, Pelop.gr reported. He said that in the end the course was not so difficult. Asefa said it was his first race in Greece and that he wanted better water service at the drink stations.
The organizers’ race preview on Saturday did not name either man. It named Asmare Bazezew of Ethiopia, with a best of 2:04:57, as a leading contender. He is not in the top 30 of the results list published by Watch Athletics.
Yatane Wins in Her First Marathon
The organizers wrote in their preview that Yatane, who is 20, would run her first marathon in Athens. Her listed result this year was fourth place at the Poznań Half Marathon in Poland in 1:09:17.
Yatane and Tsiyon Abebe Temesgen moved clear of the field after halfway and raced together until the last kilometer, Pelop.gr reported. Tsiyon finished second in 2:30:29. Jane Bareikis of the United States was third in 2:32:59.
Yatane’s time beat the race record of 2:31:06, set by Rasa Drazdauskaitė of Lithuania in 2010. It did not beat the course record. That mark is 2:26:20, run by Mizuki Noguchi of Japan at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, according to the organizers.
Tsiyon also ran faster than the 2:32:37 personal best that the organizers listed for her. She set that time in Hamburg earlier this year. In 2022, she won silver in the 3,000 meters at the World Athletics Under 20 Championships in Cali, Colombia.
Atsede Baysa Tesema, who won the Chicago Marathon in 2010 and 2012 and the Boston Marathon in 2016, finished fourth in 2:33:10.
More Ethiopian Wins This Autumn
The results in Athens add to a series of Ethiopian wins this autumn. A week earlier, Ethiopian women took the first five places at the Istanbul Marathon. In October, Ethiopians won both the men’s and women’s titles at the Frankfurt Marathon and the Dublin Marathon.
