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Tigist Ketema is one of the three women with sub-2:20 PBs on the entry list and she will hope to make her mark at the Berlin Marathon on Sunday.
Ethiopia’s Tigist Ketema and Tadese Takele will start as the fastest in the fields and will be hoping to lead the way when they line up for the Berlin Marathon on Sunday.
Ketema, previously better known as an 800m and 1,500m specialist, made her mark in the marathon in Dubai in January as she ran 2:16:07, a time that places her ninth on the women’s world marathon all-time list. She then ran 2:23:21 to place seventh in London in April and Berlin will be her first race since then.
“I have prepared for a personal best and plan to run the first half on Sunday in around 68 minutes,” she said. “I hope it won't be too cold because I prefer to run in slightly warmer weather.”
Ketema is one of three women with sub-2:20 PBs on the entry list, as her competition includes her compatriots Genzebe Dibaba and Yebrugal Melese, who have respective PBs of 2:18:05 and 2:19:36.
Dibaba ran that PB on her debut in Amsterdam in 2022 and she clocked 2:21:47 in Chicago a year later. “I saw Haile Gebrselassie run two world records in Berlin on TV and since then I've always wanted to run in Berlin,” she said. “Now the time has come. It would be a success for me if I ran a personal best.”
Another eight women on the entry list have dipped under 2:22 for the marathon in their careers so far, including Mestawot Fikir (2:20:45), Azmera Gebru (2:20:48), Sisay Gola (2:20:50), Fikrte Wereta (2:21:32) and Aberu Ayana (2:21:54), as well as Japan’s Mizuki Matsuda (2:20:52) and Ai Hosoda (2:21:42).
Germany’s Melat Kejeta is also part of that group, having clocked 2:21:47 in Dubai in January. She placed sixth at the Tokyo Olympics but was unable to finish the Olympic marathon in Paris due to stomach problems.
A total of 13 world records have so far been set in the Berlin Marathon, the most recent being the 2:11:53 by Tigist Assefa – a training partner of Ketema – in last year’s women’s race.
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