Uma and Fikir Claim Ethiopian double at Paris Marathon

Ethiopian runners Mulugeta Uma and Mestawut Fikir claimed the Ethiopian double at the 47th edition of the Schneider Electric Paris Marathon. 

Uma claimed the win in the men’s race in 2:05:33 in the fourth marathon of his career. Titus Kipruto from Kenya finished 15 second behind Uma in 2:05:48. 

A large leading group formed by 13 athletes went through the 10 km in 29:08 and the halfway mark in 1:02:09. The pack was still on track to threaten the course record set by Kenya’s Elisha Rotich with 2:04:21 in 2021. 

Kipruto led the pack through the 30 km in 1:28:27. The Kenyan athlete was closely followed by Uma, Elisha Rotich, Deso Gelmisa and Dejane Megersa and Kenya’s Bethwell Kipkemboi. 

Kipruto launched his first attack at 36 km and only Uma was able to follow him. Uma increased his pace and pulled away from Kipruto just 2 km from the finish-line. 

Uma extended his lead over Kipruto in the final stages of the race. Rotich overtook Kipkemboi to finish the race in third place in 2:06:54. 

Uma set his previous PB of 2:06:07 in Seville in 2023 and finished second in Frankfurt last October in 2.06:47. 

Twenty-year-old Ethiopian Mestawut Fikir won the women’s race in 2:20:45 in the first marathon race of her career edging out her compatriot Erat Tirusew by just two seconds in a thrilling sprint finish at Avenue de Foch.  Tirusew also ran the first marathon race of her career. Forty-year-old Kenyan distance running star Vivian Cheruiyot, Olympic champion in the 5000 metres in Rio de Janeiro 2016, struggled for a while during the race but she recovered to cross the finish-line in 2:21:47 in her first marathon race since December 2019, when she finished fourth in Valencia in 2:19:52. 

A leading pack of ten women ran together in the early stages of the race. Ethiopia’s Rahma Tusa took the front through the 10 km mark in 33:23. The pack was whittled down to six athletes by the time they went through the halfway mark in 1:10:11. Tusa still led from Tirusew and Fikir. 

Cheruiyot fell 30 seconds behind at 30 km. Tusa pushed the pace at the front with 12 km to go, but she started to fade a few kilometres later. 

Fikir and Tirusew ran a neck-and-neck race, while Cheruiyot clawed her way back into third place. Fikir broke away from Tirusew in the final sprint to cross the finish-line in 2:20:45.  

The Paris Marathon was held on a course from the Champs Elysées to Avenue de Foch, that was different from the Olympic race, which will start at Paris City Hall, head out of Versailles and return to finish near the Invalides Memorial, which houses Napoleon’s tomb.

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