© Copyright – 2022 – Athletics Illustrated
The Dubai Marathon, regularly run in January has been postponed to December 2022.
“Races organised in the UAE by Pace Events FZ LLC normally attract 25,000-30,000 runners of all standards and nationalities and are consistently the biggest mass participation events in the Middle East,” according to pace events. This much-anticipated event is another in a long line of mass races sidelined due to Covid-19.
Pace Events, the organisers, wrote the following on their website:
“As organisers of the Dubai Marathon for 21 consecutive years since its first edition in 2000, Pace Events anticipates a time when we can all come together and have another World Athletics-sanctioned Marathon and mass participation event in the city of Dubai.
Unfortunately, because of the current situation and adhering to the strict local health and safety guidelines, it still remains impossible for Pace Events to reunite the running community in Dubai with its iconic Marathon in the early part of 2022.
Races organised by our team normally attract well in excess of 25,000 runners from all over the world and until we can safely bring together athletes, stakeholders, sponsors, partners and officials we have to wait for circumstances to change.
Naturally, we are disappointed to have to wait longer but we hope to be able to put on a bigger and better event later this year. The date we have set for the return is December 10, 2022.
For now, we can only sit tight and look ahead to seeing you on the start line….”
The marathon’s first run was in 2000. Organisers have been generous with the prize purse, which started out at $250,000 for the win. And a cool million for the world record. The money and the fast course has attracted some of the best East Africans over the years.
The men’s course record, set by Ethiopian Getaneh Molla, at 2:03:40PB from the 2019 edition is the 24th fastest marathon performance all-time or 22nd if you remove two ineligible Boston Marathon entries. Twenty-three times 2:05 has been bettered mostly during the past 10 years.
Kenyan Ruth Chepngetich ran 2:17:08 in 2019 on the course, which is the fourth-fastest performance all-time. Eleven women have run sub-2:20 at Dubai.
Chepngetich owns the world half-marathon record at 1:04:02, which she set in April 2021 at the Istanbul Marathon. She won the 2019 Doha World Athletics Championships Marathon and won the 2021 Chicago Marathon in the time of 2:22:31.
