Running News Daily

Grovdal, Kipchumba Take Victories At United Airlines NYC Half

Norway’s Karoline Bjerkeli Grøvdal and Kenya’s Abel Kipchumba won this morning’s hilly and chilly United Airlines NYC Half in 1:09:09 and 1:00:25, respectively.  Grøvdal, 33, a three-time European Athletics cross country champion, became the first European woman to win the race since Britain’s Mara Yamauchi in 2010. 

Kipchumba, 30, last November’s B.A.A. Half-Marathon champion in Boston, was the race’s ninth Kenyan male champion over its 17-year history.  Both athletes won $20,000 in prize money.

The two dozen women in the elite field were in no hurry to establish a fast pace when the race set off from Prospect Park in Brooklyn just after sunrise.  Calli Thackery of Great Britain, recently named to her country’s Olympic Marathon team, was the early leader and a pack of seven went through the 5-K checkpoint in a gentle 17:07.  Grøvdal was in that pack along with Kenya’s Gladys Chepkurui, Edna Kiplagat and Cynthia Limo; the Netherlands’ Diane Van Es; and Switzerland’s Fabienne Schlumpf.  The two top Americans, Des Linden and Jenny Simpson, were five seconds back.

The next five kilometers would be critical.  As the leaders ascended the Manhattan Bridge to cross the East River, the pace became too difficult for Thackery, Van Es and Schlumpf who all slid back.  At the 10-K mark on the Manhattan side (33:26) the race was down to four: Grøvdal, Chepkurui, Kiplagat, and Limo.

Limo, the reigning Honolulu Marathon champion, was next to lose contact after Chepkurui pushed the pace up the FDR Drive along the East River. By 15-K, Limo was nearly 20 seconds behind and would finish a distant fourth in 1:11:54.

Grøvdal Comes Back

But Grøvdal was also hurting.  In the tenth mile (17th kilometer) as the race went up Seventh Avenue past Times Square, Grøvdal began to lose contact with Chepkurui and Kiplagat.  It looked like she would finish third for the third year in a row.

“I was so tired then,” Grøvdal told reporters.  “Just thinking, it’s third this year also.  But then, I don’t know.  I just tried to don’t get the gap too big.  Suddenly, I was just behind them again.”

The final seven kilometers of this race are particularly tough.  The race climbs about 30 meters from 15-K to the finish, and the finish straight itself is uphill.  Grøvdal knew the course well and was ready.

“Then something in me just, OK, now it’s the finish,” Grøvdal explained.  “It’s 3-K left, so I was planning to have a strong finish the last 2-K and I did that.”  She added: “I just went for it.”

The men’s race began much more aggressively than the women’s.  By the 5-K mark (14:23) Kipchumba and Morocco’s Zouhair Talbi had already reduced the lead pack to four.  Along for the ride were two Olympic steeplechasers, American Hillary Bor and Eritrean Yemane Haileselassie.  The four stayed together through 10-K (28:38), but then Kipchumba and Talbi began to trade surges.  That kind of racing was too punishing for Haileselassie, who drifted off the pace.  Bor, running in just his first half-marathon, hung on.

“I wanted a fast race and I think the same for him,” said Talbi, who is observing Ramadan and had to fast in the days leading up to today’s race.  “He (Kipchumba) wanted to push… so both of us keep pushing from the start.  I pushed until the end, basically.”

By 15-K (42:54) Bor was 12 seconds back and Haileselassie was 32 seconds in arrears.  It would be either the Kenyan or the Moroccan who would take the victory today.  Kipchumba was determined and recognized Talbi as a formidable opponent.

“Today was not easy,” Kipchumba told Race Results Weekly.  “The guy was strong.”

Kipchumba finally shook off Talbi in the race’s final stages, leading by 10 seconds at 20-K (57:18) and, ultimately, 17 seconds at the finish.  His time of 1:00:25 was the fastest since 2017 when the race was held on a different –and much easier– course from Central Park to lower Manhattan.

“I tried my best; I won the race,” Kipchumba said.  “(With) three kilometers remaining I said it’s time to win.”

Talbi was second in 1:00:41, and Haileselassie passed Bor in the final kilometer to take third in 1:01:37 to Bor’s 1:01:47.  Another American, Reed Fischer, rounded out the top 5 in 1:03:06.