New Italian half marathon record

Photo: Lonah Chemtai Salpeter

The Italian record for the half marathon was beaten by Eyob Faniel who ran 1:00:07 in the first edition of the Tuscany Camp Half Marathon on 28 February at Siena Ampugnano Airport. Rachid Berradi’s previous record of 1:00:20, set at the Stramilano Half Marathon in 2002, had stood for 19 years.

Faniel had become the Italian marathon record holder a year ago by running 2:07:19 in the Seville Marathon. Before this most recent performance he had been on a month-long training camp at altitude in Kapsabet, Kenya where he was training with the Kenyan winner Felix Kipkoech (59:35) and Alex Kibet (1:00:07), who beat him into third place by a whisker. Faniel made an improvement of 37 seconds over his previous personal best time.

The women’s race was effectively a time trial for the Kenyan-born Israeli Lonah Salpeter who blazed solo to a world-leading time of 1:07:09, passing through 10km in 30:35 and finishing over four minutes ahead of second-placed Sofiia Yaremchuk (Italy) in 1:11:20.