Joyciline Jepkosgei Breaks the Cardiff Half Marathon Course Record

The Kenyan ran 1:05:40 in Wales on Sunday to take 12 seconds off a record from 2017, and Gideon Kiprotich won the men's race in 59:34, a day after his 25th birthday.

Published: Oct 5, 2026 5:18 pm

Jessy Carveth

Jessy Carveth

Jessy is our Senior News Editor, pro cyclist and former track and field athlete with a Bachelors degree in Kinesiology.

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Joyciline Jepkosgei broke the women’s course record at the Cardiff Half Marathon on Sunday, winning in 1:05:40 and finishing 14 seconds ahead of Ethiopia’s Wede Kefale. Edith Chelimo’s 1:05:52 had been the time to beat on the course since 2017, and Jepkosgei, who in Prague nine years ago became the first woman to break 65 minutes for the half-marathon, arrived in Wales with a best of 1:04:13 from Barcelona last year.

Kefale came in with a personal best of her own that was quicker than Chelimo’s time, and the two ran together until Roath Park Lake, about 10 miles in, where Jepkosgei opened a gap she held all the way to the finish, according to the race report from organizers Run 4 Wales. Kefale crossed the line in 1:05:54, just two seconds slower than Chelimo’s old mark, and Tigist Tesema made it two Ethiopians on the podium in 1:07:23.

Joyciline Jepkosgei Breaks the Cardiff Half Marathon Course Record 1

“It was a tough course but I kept fighting so I’m happy to get the victory here,” Jepkosgei said. “I enjoyed it out there but there were some hills, especially near the end, which made it tough, but coming down the last straight and getting the win was special.”

The 32-year-old won the Valencia Marathon last December in a course record of 2:14:00, and in April she was third at the London Marathon. Kenya’s The Star reported before the race that she was using Cardiff as a rehearsal for her title defense in Valencia on Dec. 6, though she said the first job now was to enjoy Sunday’s win and recover.

Gideon Kiprotich turned 25 on Saturday and won the men’s race the following morning in 59:34. He went through nine miles in 40:35 alongside Yismaw Dillu, the Ethiopian who won here a year ago, and from there Kiprotich ran the rest of the way on his own. Dillu was second in 1:00:18, 44 seconds back, but his course record of 59:22 from 2025 held up by 12 seconds. Kiprotich has been quicker before, with 58:49 in Rome in March 2025, though World Athletics lists that mark as not legal for record purposes, which makes Sunday’s run the fastest he has gone on a course that counts.

“I felt good so I got quicker in the second half of the race and I am happy I could keep the pace to win,” he said.

Lloyd Sheppard-Brown, a 23-year-old from Cardiff AC, ran his first half-marathon and won the men’s Welsh title in 1:03:43, eighth overall, having already won the Cardiff 10K in the build-up. Dan Nash, the fastest Welshman on the start list, was second among the Welsh men in 1:05:20.

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“It’s nice to be back home racing after a few years in America and to win the Welsh title is pretty special,” Sheppard-Brown said.

Natasha Wilson, who ran 2:27:54 to place fifth in the European Championships marathon in Birmingham seven weeks ago, defended her women’s Welsh title in 1:10:34 and was sixth overall. Cardiff came early in a build that, like Jepkosgei’s, leads to Valencia.

“I would like to see my performances go under that 70-minute mark as I get closer to the Valencia Marathon, but I’m really happy with today’s result,” Wilson said.

Latvia’s Artūrs Niklāvs Medveds, who already holds his country’s records in the mile, 3,000m and 10,000m, was seventh in 1:02:21 on his half-marathon debut, a time the Latvian Athletics Association now lists as a national record.