Half-marathon World Record Holder set to attack the record in the Hervis Prague Half Marathon
Press Release
January 30, 2013
With an outstanding time of 58:23 Zersenay Tadese of Eritrea has managed to hold onto the world record in the half-marathon for nearly three years. Can he break the record in the Hervis Prague Half Marathon taking place this April?
Tadese achieved his world record in Lisbon in 2010. He has brought fame to his home country on several occasions. In 2004, at the Olympic Games held in Athens he scooped up his nation’s first ever medal finishing third in the 10 000 meters. Two years later he won the 20 km race at the IAAF World Road Running Championships. Between 2006 and 2009 he triumphed at the World Half Marathon Championships and repeated last year in Kavarna, Bulgaria. He has also excelled in cross country running, a discipline in which he has won one gold, a silver, and two bronze medals at the World Championships over the course of the past seven years.
“We are really pleased to be able to welcome this top athlete and see him take part in the 15th Jubilee year of the Hervis Prague Half Marathon,” stated Carlo Capalbo, Chairman of the Organizing Committee at the Prague International Marathon. “Once again we are going to see records smashed here in Prague!” he added with enthusiasm.
Mr. Alfred Eichblatt, the General Manager of Hervis Sport stated, “We are proud to support the RunCzech project, and especially the Hervis Prague Half Marathon. Our race was the fastest half marathon in the world in 2012, and this year we are hoping to break the world record.”
“Zersenay Tadese, who will be celebrating his 31st birthday this February, runs an incredibly limited number of races each year, which he selects carefully. We are truly happy that he chose Prague this year”, added Jana Moberly, Coordinator of Elite Athletes for the Organizing Team.
Among the other runners due to appear on the start line alongside Tadese, will be Philemon Limo from Kenya who ran the first half-marathon under one hour in the Czech Republic in 2011 with a time of 59:30. These two stars will compete with several other sub one hour runners for the honor of breaking the finish line tape in Prague this year.
The Hervis Prague Half Marathon is part of the RunCzech Running League and it is among the prestigious international races which have attained the International Association of Athletics Federations highest accolade, the IAAF Road Race Gold Label. In 2012, thanks to the superb time of 58:47 achieved by the Ethiopian Atsedu Tsegay, the Hervis Prague Half Marathon became the world’s fastest half-marathon of the year. This time also made Tsegay the fourth fastest half-marathon runner of all time.
The race will be held on 6th April 2013 starting from Jan Palach square in Prague at noon. Organizers have increased race capacity to 12 000, but there remain less than 1, 000 entries to be filled. “I’m confident that we’ll be closing registrations once again more than two months before the race.” revealed Václav Skřivánek from the Organizing Team.