Running News Daily

Yassine Rachik and Lilia Fisikovici win Olomouc Half Marathon

Italy’s Yassine Rachik and Lilia Fisikovici of Moldova continued their winning ways in the RunCzech EuroHeroes Challenge series, taking the titles at Mattoni Olomouc Half Marathon in the Czech Republic.

In hot conditions, with the temperature around 30°C at the start of the race at 7pm local time, Rachik clocked 64:26 and Fisikovici 73:32 for clear victories.

That makes it three wins from three races for the pair in the EuroHeroes series, following their success in Karlovy Vary in May and Ceské Budejovice at the beginning of this month.

The four-race series was launched in 2018 with the support of European Athletics and aims to highlight new sporting heroes from the continent, as athletes claim points for their performances and can compete for a separate EuroHeroes ranking and prize structure.

Ukraine’s Olha Kotovska was second in 74:35 and her compatriot Darya Mykhailova was third in 74:57. Matea Parlov finished fourth in 75:18.

In the men’s race, London Marathon ninth-placer Rachik solo ran his way to success, with Ukraine’s Roman Romanenko securing second in 66:01 and Ireland’s Paul Pollock placing third in 66:12.

The top Czech runners were Vít Pavlišta in fifth with 68:09 and Marcela Joglová in ninth with 77:55.

“It was hard to run alone,” said Rachik, “and it wasn’t easy to fight with that heat, too.”

A total of 10,078 runners took part in the Mattoni Olomouc Half Marathon events, with 6481 in the main race and 3597 in the family run.

The fourth and final event in this year’s EuroHeroes Challenge will be the Mattoni Ústí nad Labem Half Marathon, held on September 21.

Yassine Rachik won the Mattoni Karlovy Vary Half Marathon clocking 1:02:59

Prestigious  victory in the Mattoni Karlovy Vary Half Marathon, in the Czech Republic, with Yassine Rachik who established herself in 1:02:59, three weeks from 2:08:05 in the London marathon, the fourth Italian ever and best national result in the last thirteen years.

The 25-year-old, registered for the Athletics Casone Noceto, won clearly at the end of a race conducted for more than half in solitary, clearly detaching the Ukrainians Roman Romanenko, defending champion, second in 1:04:39, and Mykola Iukhymchuk, third in 1:04:58.

For Yassine this is his fourth career performance on the half, with the PB stopped at 1:02:13 obtained in 2017 in Agropoli.

"I'm really happy for what I managed to do. I thought I wasn't doing too well after the marathon, but instead I had a good time running around feeling. I found myself in the lead from the seventh kilometer, with a stretch, then I tried to go on by myself and I didn't lose anything on the rhythm ”, the words of the blue.

In the women's field the victory of the Moldovan Lilia Fisikovici in 1:12:34 on the Ukrainian Olha Kotovska, second in 1:14:32, and Viktoria Kalyuzhna, third in 1:14:45.

Yassine Rachik is ready to take on the Mattoni Karlovy Vary Half Marathon after an amazing performance in London

Yassine Rachik ran 2:08:05 at the London marathon which is best result of an Italian in the last thirteen years.  He will be on the staring line Saturday May 18 at the Mattoni Karlovy Vary Half Marathon in the Czech Republic.

The Atletica Casone Noceto runner has chosen to run this half marathon, which will start in the unusual afternoon time of 6.00 pm. For the 25-year-old from Bergamo, an all-European challenge in the first stage of the "EuroHeroes" project which aims to highlight the continent's athletes.

Other elite runners in the field include the Ukrainian Roman Romanenko, winner of the last edition, and the Spanish El Hassan Oubaddi. 

This season, Rachik, who won the bronze medal at the Berlin European Championships last summer, came close to a half marathon personal record clocking 1: 02.29 on the streets of Naples, in February, sixteen seconds off his PR time of 1:02:13 made in Agropoli in 2017 when he won the Italian title for the distance.

Yassine Rachik is a born Moroccan male Italian long-distance runner who won his country's senior national championship three times and an individual bronze medal at the 2018 European Athletics Championships. He became an Italian citizen in 2015. 

During his career he also won the gold medal with the national team in the 2018 European Athletics Championships – Men's Marathon Cup, and also at U-23 level at the 2015 European Athletics U23 Championships held in Tallinn.