Kenyan takes half marathon honours, while Amanal Petros breaks his German record and Likina Amebaw charges to women’s victory.
The conditions might have been cool, but the racing temperature was still high at an eventful edition of the Generali Berlin Half Marathon on Sunday morning (March 29).
In the men’s race, Andrea Kiptoo enjoyed the biggest win of his career so far, hitting the line first in 59:11 but only after his fellow Kenyan Dennis Kipkemoi, running as a pacemaker, stepped aside in the final strides.
Third place went to Amanal Petros, who broke his own German record by nine seconds with a run of 59:22 to finish just ahead of Swiss Dominic Lobalu’s 59:23, while there was a big personal best for Frenchman Etienne Daguinos as he clocked 59:27 for fifth.
Britain’s Phil Sesemann also clocked his fastest time ever, by one second, as he too warmed up for next month’s London Marathon with 61:21 for 16th.
In the women’s race, the honours went to Ethiopian Likina Amebaw, who led for the majority of the race to clock 65:07 and secure a 14-second winning margin over Kenya’s Daisilah Jerono (65:21), while Veronica Loleo of Kenya was third in 65:35.
Esther Pfeiffer, running only one week on from winning the German half marathon title in Frankfurt, was fifth in 67:25, a personal best by three seconds, while Sam Harrison was the leading British finisher in 11th with 68:38.
Hopes had been high that Petros could threaten Andreas Almgren’s European record of 58:41 but a run of ebbs and flows meant that ambition wouldn’t be realised. He was initially part of the leading group that featured Kiptoo, Lobalu, Michael Temoi and Ayensa Alemu but, as Temoi took them through the 5km mark in 14:02, the Eritrean-born German was showing signs of struggling.
With Kiptoo hitting the 10km mark in 27:50, after a second 5km of 13:47, the gap had grown as Petros came through in 28:07. The leading quartet became three as Temoi fell away in the final 5km, before Kiptoo also began to drop Lobalu.
The figure of Kipkemoi suddenly became far more prominent, however, as he ran stride by stride with the leader and was showing no signs of letting up. Even as they upped the pace, the pair were clearly having a discussion in the final kilometre before the pacemaker decided, very late on, not to press his own claims.
AW understands that this had been his first event outside of Kenya and he had not fully understood race protocol.
Behind them, Petros had rallied and put in an impressive late charge to make up ground, the world marathon silver medallist clearly still delighted to have broken his national record as he prepares for London.
“What a feeling,” said Petros. “It felt like everything that I have been working towards over the last year with PUMA – and in my recent training programme in Kenya – paid off on the course today. I’m very happy with my performance, and this just makes me even more determined for success at the London Marathon next month.”
Sesemann was also pleased with his day’s work and will now turn his attention to the final stages of his marathon build-up, with ambitions of going faster than his personal best of 2:07:11.
“I’m going to push things pretty hard,” said the 33-year-old, who was followed home by Jake Smith (24th in 62:07) and Marc Scott (29th in 62:50). “I don’t want a solid run in London, I want a really good run so I’m going to take some risks, push things and hopefully step up my level to a [marathon] personal best. I feel like 2:06 is possible.”
Amebaw looked in control throughout the women’s race but only put clear daylight between herself and her rivals in the closing stages. Of the British contingent, Harrison was followed home by Charlotte Dannatt (23rd with 70:42), Lily Partridge (28th with 71:24) and Natasha Phillips (72:11 in 30th).
Full results here