Ethiopian great Selemon Barega will be on the start line of the 40th Zurich Maraton de Sevilla (Spain) on February 23. The expectation for Barega’s debut is high, as debuts have gone as of late.

The Olympic gold medallist in the 10,000 metres in Tokyo, is training hard for his debut after running the Valencia half marathon in the time of 57:50 in 2023, then 58:57 in 2024. That performances speak to a potential 2:02 to 2:03 debut. His latter effort was likely run on tired legs.

He has run the 3000m in the world-class time of 7:25.82, and 10,000m in 26:34.93. He has also earned silver and bronze medals at the World Athletics Championships in the 5000m and 10,000m events in Doha and Budapest, respectively.

The 25-year-old (his birthday is January 20) runner will have three pacemakers, however, will not decide until the week of the race the pace at which he will try to race.

Barega trains in his country together with a large group of top athletes. He decided to make his debut in Seville last summer on the advice of colleagues such as Deresa Geleta (winner and record holder of the Zurich Sevilla Maraton, fifth in Paris 2024).

The Zurich Seville Marathon celebrates its 40th edition on Feb. 23, and has sold out all 14,000 places available. Its an all-time participation record. In its last edition, it was one of the six fastest marathons in history with up to 11 national records broken and it became the race with the highest number of sub 2:10 and 2:15 athletes and the second with sub 2:30 women of all time. It has already managed to beat some of the participation records for 2025, with 21 per cent of women registered (17 per cent in the last edition) and more than half of the runners from abroad (53 per cent against 47 per cent in 2024). The Seville Marathon was the fifth fastest Marathon so far last year in terms of elite men.

The Zurich Maraton de Sevilla is organized by the Seville City Council with the collaboration of Sport Life Iberica and the sponsorship of Asics and TotalEnergies.

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