Ethiopia’s Ababel Yeshaneh on Thursday smashed the half marathon world record at 2020 RAK Half Marathon in Qatar.
Yeshaneh, the 2019 Chicago Marathon runner-up, won the race in a world record of 64:31.
Yeshaneh’s first international medal came at the 2014 African Cross Country Championships. She finished sixth in the women’s race which brought her a silver medal as part of the Ethiopian women’s team led by Tadelech Bekele. After this she returned to the roads, coming fourth at the Portugal Half Marathon. At the start of 2015 she won the half marathon section of the Ooredoo Marathon in Doha.
She is a long-distance runner who competes in track, road and cross country events. She represented her country in the 10,000 metres at the 2013 World Championships in Athletics, coming ninth, and ranked fifth in the world on time that year. She was a team silver medallist at the African Cross Country Championships in 2014.
Brigid Kosgei of Kenya finished second.
MG/abj/APA