Belihu and Gemechu to defend Airtel Delhi Half Marathon titles

New Delhi: Ethiopia's Andamlak Belihu and Tsehay Gemechu will return to defend their men's and women's titles respectively in the 16th edition of the Airtel Delhi Half Marathon on November 29.

The Ethiopian pair will both be aiming for an unprecedented third successive victory in the prestigious IAAF Gold Label Road Race.

"This has been a difficult year, for everyone around the world, not just professional athletes, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and I have been training alone much more than that I am normally used to.

"But my fifth place at the World Athletics Half Marathon Championships last month has assured me that I am in good shape and I am confident I can put up a good defence of my title," said Belihu.

Ethiopia's Guye Adola will return to Delhi for the first time since he set the course record of 59:06 in 2014.

An unprecedented 13 men in the ADHM 2020 elite field have run under the world class bench mark of one hour, and five of them have run faster than Belihu in their careers.

The fastest man in the field is Bahrain's 2018 World Athletics Half Marathon Championships silver medallist Abraham Cheroben, who holds the Asian record for the distance with 58:40.

Two other men to watch out will be the Ethiopian pair of Amdework Walelegn, who was second in Delhi last year and also took the bronze medal at 2020 World Athletics Half Marathon Championships, and 2017 and 2019 world 5000m champion Muktar Edris, who will be making his half marathon debut.

Last year, Gemechu improved her own women's course record by 50 seconds when she ran a stunning personal best of 66 minutes.

She will have a host of outstanding rivals in this year's race, arguably the strongest women's field ever seen in the history of the ADHM with seven women having run under 67 minutes.

Among them are two of her compatriots, Yalemzerf Yehualaw and Netsanet Gudeta.

The in-form Yehualaw finished second in the ADHM last year, just a second behind Gemechu.

She grabbed the third place at the World Athletics Half Marathon Championships last month with a personal best of 65:19. While Gudeta finished eighth in Poland but helped Ethiopia bag the team gold and was the 2018 world half marathon champion.

Both the men's and women's races have a first prize cheques of USD 27,000 with a total prize purse (combined men and women) of USD 233,270.

This year's ADHM will be held in a bio-secure bubble with only an estimated 60 elite international and Indian runners in action.

Non-elite runners of all abilities will have a chance to participate virtually from any location, running at any time between November 25-29.