Jepchirchir sets new women-only half marathon world record

Kenya’s Peres Jepchirchir set a new women-only half marathon world record time of one hour, five minutes and 34 seconds in Prague on Saturday. Jepchirchir broke away from the pack after seven kilometres and ran solo to the finishing line, beating the previous record of 1:06:11 by Ethiopia’s Netsanet Gudeta in 2018. “I was thinking to run maybe 1:04:50, but I’m so happy,” said Jepchirchir, who claimed the world half marathon title in 2016. “It’s difficult to run alone. If I had a pacemaker I would run 64 (minutes),” she said. Jepchirchir’s time was more than a minute off the women’s world half marathon record of 1:04:31, set by Ethiopia’s Ababel Yeshaneh in February in a mixed men and women race.