A mix of highly experienced marathon runners with strong personal records and younger challengers could produce some fascinating races at the 46th Türkiye Is Bankasi Istanbul Marathon on 3rd November.
Ethiopia’s Abebe Negewo and Kenneth Kipkemoi of Kenya head the current men’s start list with personal bests of sub 2:05:00.
Kenya’s former World Championships’ marathon bronze medallist Sharon Cherop is the fastest woman on the list with 2:22:28.
Cherop, Negewo and Kipkemoi have all turned 40 this year, but they are still going very strong. They will have to hit top form if they want to challenge for victory in Istanbul.
Ethiopians Kelkile Gezahegn and Sentayehu Lewetegn will be among their rivals while 24 year-old debutant Betty Kibet of Kenya could produce a surprise.
A total of 42,500 runners have entered the race that leads the athletes from the Asian side of the city onto the July 15 Martyrs Bridge and then into the European part of Istanbul. 7,500 of them will run the classic distance on 3rd November.
“No marathon is run in a city that bears the traces of three great empires that have left a significant mark on world history. No marathon passes over a bridge that connects continents above a magnificent strait.
“Thanks to this unique feature, we believe that the Türkiye Is Bankasi Istanbul Marathon is the best thematic marathon in the world,” said Race Director Renay Onur.
‘Getting better with age’
There are now many examples of runners who have turned 40 and still going strong: Kenenisa Bekele, Tadesse Abraham or Edna Kiplagat are among them.
With a personal best of 2:04:51 Abebe Negewo is the runner with the fastest PB in the Istanbul field. He ran this time in Valencia in 2019 when he was fourth.
While Negewo, who is also known as Abebe Degefa, has not raced as often as during his early career he produced one excellent marathon in each year: 2:05:27 in Valencia in 2021, 2:06:05 in Hamburg in 2022 and 2:08:12 in Rotterdam last year.
Negewo has not competed yet this year, so if he wants to continue this streak of strong results Istanbul will be his best chance.
Kenneth Kipkemoi is the other top-class marathon runner in Istanbul’s men’s field who turned 40 this year.
The Kenyan’s last three marathons were consistently fast: Kipkemoi ran 2:08:15 in Rotterdam in 2023 and then won the Eindhoven Marathon in the autumn with a personal best of 2:04:52. This year he returned to Rotterdam where he was fourth with 2:05:43.
Two Ethiopians who are more than ten years younger will be among the favourites as well. 28 year-old Kelkile Gezahegn, who has a PB of 2:05:56, is a runner who focusses fully on the classic distance.
Since the start of his international career in 2016 he competed only in city marathons. He managed to win all his first four marathons in the year 2016, all in China. “The marathon is my distance,“ said Gezahegn when he won the Frankfurt Marathon in 2018.
Dejene Debela is 29 years old and ran his personal best of 2:05:46 when he was runner-up in Chicago in 2019. After a two year-break, which seems to have been injury related, he came back this year with 2:09:33 in Taiyuan, China.
Sharon Cherop is the most prominent athlete in the elite field of the Türkiye Is Bankasi Istanbul Marathon. The 40 year-old Kenyan took the bronze medal in the marathon at the World Championships in Daegu, South Korea, in 2011.
A year later Cherop won the prestigious Boston Marathon and in 2013 she clocked her PB of 2:22:28 when she was runner-up in Berlin. This PB makes her the fastest woman on the start list in Istanbul.
Cherop is still going strong. Last year she won the Milan Marathon and this spring she was second in Hannover with 2:24:41. “I think I can run for a couple of more years,“ she said after the race in Germany.
Sentayehu Lewetegn will be among Sharon Cherop’s challengers. The Ethiopian ran a strong debut in Frankfurt in 2018 with 2:22:45 for sixth place. The 28 year-old could not improve this PB yet, but she came close in Ljubljana: Two years ago she was second there with 2:22:36.
Betty Kibet is an athlete who could have an immediate impact in the marathon. The 24 year-old Kenyan will run her debut over the classic distance in Istanbul.
While she has a promising 66:37 half marathon PB she ran the Türkiye Is Bankasi Istanbul Half Marathon this April and finished sixth with a fine 68:39.
Kibet, who was a world-class junior athlete in her early career, has a strong 10k PB of 31:08 and ran 1:21:43 in Kolkata, India, for 25k in December last year.
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