Yomif Kejelcha’s Withdrawal Leaves the Valencia Marathon Without a Sub-Two-Hour Runner

Yomif Kejelcha will not run the Valencia Marathon on Dec. 6. The Ethiopian, who ran 1:59:41 on his marathon debut in London in April, announced on Friday that he had been injured in his buildup, and Marathon Handbook reported the withdrawal that morning. With 23 days to go, the race Valencia is left with looks very different from the one it spent two years putting together.

“Sometimes sport is like this,” Kejelcha wrote on Instagram, adding that he needed to “stop now, recover well, and work hard to be back on the start line soon.” Neither he nor the organizers have said what the injury is or how long he expects to be out. Under the race’s own post, Marc Roig, who recruits Valencia’s international elites, left a short comment: “El día más triste del año,” the saddest day of the year.

The Fastest Man Left Is Almost Three Minutes Off the Record

Kejelcha was the only man in the field who had already broken two hours, and the only one anywhere near the money Valencia puts up for a world record. The race regulations set the men’s mark at Sabastian Sawe’s 1:59:30 from London and attach €1 million ($1.12 million) to beating it. Kejelcha finished just 11 seconds behind Sawe that day.

John Korir now has the fastest official best on the start list, the 2:02:24 he ran to win Valencia last December. He has gone quicker since, winning Boston in 2:01:52 in April, but Boston’s point-to-point course is not eligible for records, so that time does not count as his personal best. Against 1:59:30, his official mark is 2:54 short. Korir told The Star in September that his “prayer is to run sub-two hours” in Valencia, as Marathon Handbook reported at the time.

To get there he would need two halves of 59:45. Last year he went through halfway in 1:01:47, watched the pacemakers step off at 25K, and ran the rest of the race alone, covering the second half in 1:00:37, according to World Athletics’ race report. That was a negative split of more than a minute with nobody to share the work, and a sub-two run would ask for almost three minutes more.

Here is the men’s field without Kejelcha, as published by the organizers:

Alexander Mutiso and Dawit Wolde both ran their bests finishing second and third behind Sisay Lemma in 2023, Kibrab set a Norwegian record in third place last year, and Gebreselassie won the race back in 2018. Including Korir, four of the six set their personal bests in Valencia.

A Race for the Course Record

The more realistic target now is Lemma’s course record of 2:01:48, and recent history says it is within reach. Valencia’s last four winners have all finished inside 2:02:30: Kelvin Kiptum in 2:01:53 in 2022, Lemma in 2023, Sawe in 2:02:05 on his debut in 2024 and Korir last year. Breaking the course record pays €30,000 ($33,600). Korir would have to take 37 seconds off his best to do it.

Valencia’s chief executive, Juan Manuel Botella, made it plain in May that the plan for Kejelcha was never a comfortable win. “He wouldn’t come to a marathon like Valencia to easily win in 2:03, nor would we hire him to run at 95%,” he told Marathon Handbook, after two years of talks with Kejelcha’s camp. He looked ready for it, running 56:51 for the half-marathon in Buenos Aires in August, a world record that World Athletics ratified on Monday.

Now neither of the two men who broke two hours in London is expected to run another marathon this year. Sawe pulled out of his Berlin title defense in late August, and his agent, Eric Lilot, told LetsRun the next day that the injury was a small stress fracture of the right tibia. The target for his next marathon is spring 2027.

The Million Euros Now Likely Sits With the Women

The same €1 million is on offer in the women’s race, where the target is Ruth Chepngetich’s 2:09:56, and nothing has changed there. Fotyen Tesfay ran 2:10:51 on her debut in Barcelona in March, the second-fastest time any woman has run and only 55 seconds off the record. Speaking through an interpreter after that race, she said that “in the next marathon I would like to try for the world record,” and Valencia is that marathon.

She will race defending champion Joyciline Jepkosgei, who set the women’s course record of 2:14:00 winning last year, and Agnes Ngetich, the 10K world record holder and world half-marathon champion, who is making her marathon debut on the streets where she has already won the Valencia Half Marathon twice. Juan Roig, the Mercadona president whose Trinidad Alfonso foundation pays the bonus, said after last year’s race that it holds for men and women alike. With Kejelcha out, Tesfay is the only athlete on either start list within a minute of a world record.