Less than two months after winning the Seville Marathon in 2:20:39, Finland’s Alisa Vainio will contest the distance once again in the Paris Marathon on 12 April.
This will be her fifth marathon in just under seven months. The Finn was an excellent fifth at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo before setting national records in her next three endeavours at the distance.
After clocking 2:23:06 just three weeks later at the Finnish Marathon Championships in Vantaa where she finished second overall, Vainio made another big step forwards in the Valencia Marathon at the end of December, finishing fourth in 2:20:48.
But the biggest triumph of her career was to follow just two months later when she won the Seville Marathon, her first victory in an international marathon, in yet another Finnish record of 2:20:38 courtesy of a negative second half split of 70:05.
After the race, Vainio said: "I knew from training that I was in slightly better shape than in Valencia but many other things also affect the final result. I would have had a pretty good chance of running under 2:20, but that's in the future now. Of course I'm not disappointed with this run. This was really good.”
Maybe an assault on the 2:20-barrier will be on the cards in Paris? The elite women’s line-up features three athletes who have broken this barrier already: Kenyans Magdalyne Masai (2:18:58 PB) and Sharon Chelimo (2:19:33) and Ethiopia’s Yebrgual Melese (2:19:36).
The field also includes Vainio’s Finnish teammate and former national record-holder Camilla Richardsson and fellow Paris 2024 Olympians Mekdes Woldu, Melody Julien and Meline Rollin, all from France.
In the men’s race, the European interest will be led by Norway’s Awet Kibrab and Italy’s Yemaneberhan Crippa.
Kibrab made a spectacular debut in the Valencia Marathon last December, finishing an unexpected third in a Norwegian record of 2:04:24 to move to sixth on the European all-time list.
Crippa, who won the European half marathon title two years ago in Rome, has a more tempestuous relationship with the full marathon distance. He hasn’t broken the 2:10-barrier in two years but the Italian will race with renewed confidence after setting an Italian half marathon record of 59:01 in Naples.
Other strong Europeans announced include Switzerland's former world orienteering champion Matthias Kyburz who finished seventh in this race on his debut in 2:07:44 and France's Felix Bour who clocked a 2:06:41 PB in the Valencia Marathon in December.
The elite men’s line-up is headed by Ethiopians Kinde Atanaw (2:03:51) and Leul Gebresilase (2:04:02) and Uganda’s former world marathon champion Victor Kiplangat (2:05:09).
