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Event date: Feb 20, 2009
Makau also ran the 2nd fastest half marathon time ever, at 58:52. The WR of Sammy Wanjiry is 58:33 and the next best is also Wanjiru’s at 58:53, set in the 1st RAK half marathon in 2007. I had the opportunity to follow the event live on sport-track.com where it displayed the runners by dots (using GPS) on a Google map! Interesting use of an interesting technology.
Results (courtesy ultimate.dk, complete chip timings at championchipuae):
Men:
1 1 Patrick Makau 
0:58:52
2 3 Wilson Kipsang Kiprotich + 7 sec
3 2 Deriba Merga 
+ 26 sec 4 4 Wilson Chebet + 40 sec 5 20 Matthew Koech + 1:02 sec
Women: 1 62 Dire Tune 1:07:18 2 65 Aselefech Mergia + 30 sec 3 52 Philes Ongori + 32 sec 4 54 Abebu Gelan + 39 sec 5 56 Lydia Cheromei + 56 sec
BTW, Makau also broke the course record of 58:53 set by Wanjiru in 2007, which entitles him to a further $5000, though breaking the WR would have meant a $100,000 jackpot.
There were special prize money rules in this run as follows:
- Winners in the Men’s Open Category positions 1-5 must finish in 60:00 minutes or less to qualify for 100% of the advertised prize. Failure to finish within this time bracket will reduce the prize to 50% value.
- Winners in the Women’s Open Category positions 1-5 must finish in 69:00 minutes or less to qualify for 100% of the advertised prize. Failure to finish within this time bracket will reduce the prize to 50% value.
#1 condition above for Men’s race was met, with exactly 5 runners going sub-60 mins! #2 was also met with 6 runners going under 69 mins.
I wonder if there has ever been another half marathon in the world with 5 sub-60 runners.
