Madrid (EFE) in the last kilometers after suffering a mishap that led her to vomit in the race.
The Rock ‘n’ Roll Running Series Madrid party, which includes marathon, half marathon and 10 kilometer distances, once again filled the streets of the Spanish capital with color, through which 34,000 runners from 102 countries took strides, which represents a growth of ten percent compared to last year.
Geoffrey Kusuro was the fastest to prevail at the finish line located on Paseo de Recoletos, at the height of the National Library. The Ugandan, who was second in Madrid last year, broke the leading group two hours into the race to separate from the Kenyan Sila Kiptoo (2h10:31), second, and his compatriot Bernard Kimpkemboi (2h10:32), third .
In the female category the winner was Doreen Chesang. The Ugandan, eleventh in the Cross Country World Championships this year, reached the finish line first after running a large part of the race alone.
The second was the Ethiopian Fetale Tsegaye (2h32:18) and the third was the Marta Galimany from Tarragona (2h37:47), who had a moment of crisis in the last kilometers, stopping to vomit, but who knew how to compose herself to run again at a good pace and get on the third drawer of the podium.
“People have helped me get my strength when I have run out of it. It was hard for me but I enjoyed it. I had stomach problems, the nerves from before the race helped that, but I got the strength to finish”, said Galimany, holder of the Spanish marathon record with 2h26:14 in Valencia in 2022.
In the half marathon, in the women’s category, the winner was Clara Viñarás, runner-up in Spain over 3,000 obstacles in 2020, who won the finish line with a time of 1h16:20, ahead of two other Spaniards, Diana Martín Ugarte (1h19 :15), second, and Marta García-Saavedra (1h20:05), third.
In the men’s category, the Kenyan dominance in the half marathon was complete. The victory was awarded to Victor Kipruto, who this year already won the Azkoitia Azpeitia half marathon, stopping the clock in 1h00:04, seconded on the podium by his compatriot Charles Matata (1h00:21) and Geoffrey Toroitich (1h00:44 ). The first Spaniard was Juan Antonio ‘Chiki’ Pérez, who finished ninth with 1h05:22.
In the 10k test, Carlos Mayo and Águeda Marqués revalidated their victories in the shortest distance test of the Zurich Rock ‘n’ Roll Running Series Madrid.
The first three swords of the Adidas team (Adrián Ben, Jesús Ramos and Carlos Mayo) decided to reach the finish line together and hand in hand (30:11 passing through the goal for all three) in a show of camaraderie After deliberation, the judges of the test gave Carlos Mayo the winner, followed by Jesús Ramos Reviejo and Adrián Ben, recent 800m European champion on the indoor track.
For Carlos Mayo it was his sixth victory in the capital and the third in a row, while Águeda Marques won (32:41) with a difference of seventeen seconds over Paula Herrero, recent national 10k record holder.
The figures of the Madrid marathon
For this edition, the forty-fifth in its history, the 34,000 available numbers were sold out, ten percent more than in 2022, of which 9,000 were marathon, 17,000 in the middle and 8,000 in the 10k. Of the total number of runners, 33% were women and 67% men.
Of the 34,000 participants, 27,342 were national athletes and 6,658 foreigners from 102 countries, so the number of foreigners grew by almost 1,200 compared to last year. The most numerous were the French (1,248), followed by the Italians (614) and the British (599).
The marathon offered the most monumental route in its history, with a tourist and historical layout that allowed runners to cross the most emblematic sites of the city such as Gran Vía, Plaza de España, Preciados street or Puerta del Sol, through which the athletes of the three distances ran.