Nagoya Women's Marathon winner to pocket Ksh 35 million

The Nagoya Women's Marathon will be coming up on Sunday offering the highest prize money with the winner set to walk away with Ksh 35 million ($241,500US).

The 2024 Nagoya Women’s Marathon is certainly one of the marathons in the world that offers the highest prize money.

The winner of the race will walk away with more than Ksh 35 million with every finisher also being awarded a beautiful, specially designed pendant from a global luxury jeweller, Tiffany & Co., as a memento of their achievement.

As per the race organisers, the prize money for the subsequent places will be determined separately based on the competition results.

Meanwhile, this year’s field has attracted Gotytom Gebreslase who will have the course record in her sights when she races in the marathon, a World Athletics Platinum Label road race.

The 2022 world champion set her Personal Best time of 2:18:11 when winning that title in Oregon and she went on to secure silver at last year’s World Championships in Budapest.

This will be the Ethiopian’s first marathon since then and she goes into it targeting at least a lifetime best, if not the course record of 2:17:18 set by Kenya’s Ruth Chepngetich in 2022 – that time being the second-fastest-ever women-only marathon behind the 2:17:01 run by Mary Keitany in London in 2017.

“My goal for Sunday is to run under 2 hours and 18 minutes, and if the weather and pacemakers are good, I will try to break the course record of 2:17:18,” she said at the pre-event press conference.

She will face a stern test from Bahrain’s Eunice Chebichii Chumba, who finished seventh in the Olympic Games marathon in Sapporo, and Romania’s Delvine Relin Meringor who ran her national record of 2:20:49 when finishing third in Barcelona a year ago and she went on to place 12th in the Berlin Marathon in 2:23:25.

Violah Cheptoo will be Kenya’s sole representative in the race, hoping to retain the title that was won by Chepng’etich during last year’s edition of the race.

posted Saturday March 9th
by Abigael Wuafula