© Copyright – 2020 – Athletics Illustrated
Mo Farah won the Antrim Coast Half Marathon in Northern Ireland on Saturday but missed the British record that he was going for by 12 seconds. The effort was run one week after he took the world one-hour record in Brussels. He won in one hour 27 seconds.
Finishing second was Marc Scott in 60:43 and in third was Ben Connor in 60:59.
Farah at age 37, is a four-time Olympic gold medallist in the 5000m and 10,000m events.
Twenty-six-year-old Scott is a British runner who competed in the 2017 London and 2019 Doha World Athletics Championships in the 5000m event. His personal best is 13:22.37. Connor, at 27, is also a British runner with a similar 5000m best of 13:19.47.
Connor competed in the 2017 London World Athletics Championships as well. His previous half-marathon best was 61:12 was from the Barcelona Half Marathon in 2017. Connor has run the 10,000m in 27:57.60 while Scott owns a best of 27:56.19, so they are closely matched.
Farah, a decade older may be slowing just a little has run as fast as 12:53.11 and 26:46.57, respectively.
Farah went into this race hoping he would improve on his own British half marathon record of 59:32.
Fourth-place finisher Stephen Scullion from nearby Belfast and Farah led from the beginning. The four ended up working together for the first half of the race at 30:38, which includes the only noteable climb on the course.
Scullion gave the home crowd something to cheer about as he held a marginal lead late into the race, but perhaps led for too long and paid the price as the three passed him in the late going. Farah made his move to put some space on the group over the final kilometre, or so.
The Women’s race
In the women’s race the top three all broke the Northern Ireland all-comers record.
Lily Partridge won in the time of 71:36. Second was Sam Harrison who finished in 71:58 and she was followed in by Clara Evans in the time of 72:21, which represents a new personal best for the 26-year-old.
Partridge and Harrison split half-way in the time of 35:38, while Evans sat back six seconds.
Partridge has run the distance as fast as 70:32 in Reading in 2015, which she won. The 29-year-old finished eighth in the 2018 London Marathon in the time of 2:29:24.
Harrison’s best is 71:01. She has run under 72-minutes three times in 2020.
Evans entered the race with a best of 72:30 from the Barcelona race earlier this year.
