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Marathons are a sustainable method to discover the Middle East. We have the best marathons in the Middle East list here, some simple some excessive and extremely. But need to attempt the oldest marathon within the Middle East. In Dubai?
The Dubai Marathon is the most important mass sporting occasion within the Middle East, based on occasion organizers. It’s an annual road-based marathon hosted by Dubai, United Arab Emirates, since 1998. The marathon is categorized as a Gold Label Road Race by World Athletics. In 2007, it was introduced that the 2008 marathon would turn out to be the world’s richest lengthy distance operating occasion in historical past, with a million {dollars} provided as a prize for a world file and $250,000 for first place for each women and men.
This 12 months prime money prizes nonetheless entice the world’s finest runners. Participants from the previous claimed that whereas the structure is gorgeous, and the climate is nice for Europeans searching for a bit extra warmth within the winter, however a lot of the race takes place by means of flat and considerably boring surroundings.
This 12 months within the ladies’s race, it’s Ethiopia that dominates the lads’s elite subject with a clutch of worldwide champions set to battle it out for the title when the 2023 Dubai Marathon returns to the operating fold on February 12.
While Tsegaye Mekonnen, the 2014 Dubai Marathon champion, boasts the sector’s private finest time of two:04:32, he’ll face quite a lot of gifted and skilled compatriots together with 2022 Rome and Linz Marathon winner Fikre Bekele, former Rotterdam Marathon champion Abera Kuma and Gebretsadik Abraha, a winner in Marrakech, Prague, Guangzhou and, most lately, in Ljubljana.
And they face a difficult new 42 km route that may take them from Expo City Dubai out on to a number of the metropolis’s most trendy highways, previous Dubai Investments Park and Jumeirah Golf Estates, earlier than returning to complete in entrance of the iconic Wasl Dome.
Still simply 24, Fikre Bekele – generally known as Fikre Tefera till a number of years in the past – has competed in simply six worldwide marathons throughout his profession, profitable 5 and ending fourth within the different. While his first two wins got here in 2018 in Vadodara and Bilbao, the next 12 months he was the shock winner of the Frankfurt Marathon the place he outkicked his rivals with 300m to go.
Bekele returned to motion after the pandemic in 2022 with one other two spectacular victories profitable in Rome (2:06:48) earlier than securing his private finest of two:06:13 in Linz, Austria – on each events he smashed the course data.
Like Bekele, Abraha involves Dubai stuffed with confidence as his most up-to-date race was in all probability his finest ever. In October he gained the Ljubljana Marathon in Slovenia in a time of two:06:09, lastly bettering a private finest he had set a decade earlier. Last 12 months noticed him run three marathons, profitable two of them with that triumph in Ljubljana following on from victory in Lens in France.
Abera Kuma is one other of the numerous Ethiopian world-class athletes who’ve made their marathon debuts on the Dubai Marathon. In 2014 he produced a positive efficiency in a prime subject and completed tenth in 2:09:53. He ran his second marathon in Berlin, the place he improved by virtually 4 minutes, taking third place in 2:05:56, which stays his second quickest time on the distance.
His massive marathon victory got here in 2015 in Rotterdam, a sustainable metropolis the place he additionally clocked his private finest of two:05:50 three years later, ending in second place simply six seconds behind the winner.
Held underneath the aegis of the Dubai Sports Council, the Dubai Marathon will begin and end for the primary time at Expo City Dubai.
Runners who’ve but to register and who wish to compete within the Marathon, the 10km Road Race or 4km Fun Run can nonetheless register up till February 11 solely on the official web site dubaimarathon.org.
The 2023 Dubai Marathon is supported by adidas, Dubai Duty Free, NORQAIN, the Channel 4 Radio Network, Al Ameen, the Dubai Sports Council, Dubai RTA, Dubai Police and Dubai Municipality.
