Agnes Ngetich Wins the World Half-Marathon Title in a World Record

Agnes Ngetich won the world half-marathon title at the World Athletics Road Running Championships in Copenhagen on Sunday, running 1:05:15 to break a women-only world record that Peres Jepchirchir had held for almost six years.

She has twice gone quicker than that. Her first attempt at the distance, in Valencia in 2024, produced 1:03:04, and she went back the following year to run 1:03:08. Only Letesenbet Gidey has ever run a faster half-marathon, her 1:02:52 from 2021. Both of Ngetich’s runs had men in the field, which is why they sit on a separate list from the one she topped on Sunday. World Athletics keeps its women-only records for races run without men, and the half-marathon entry had belonged to Jepchirchir since the world half marathon championships in Gdynia in October 2020.

Her four 5K segments came out at 15:12, 15:27, 15:38 and 15:39, a slowdown of less than half a minute across the whole race from a runner with nobody to run off. She was alone inside the opening kilometer, which took her 3:00, and led by 10 seconds at 5K. By 10K she had 26 seconds, by 15K she had 53, and the group of eight behind her was coming apart as it chased. Her 10K split of 30:39 was 1:53 slower than her own world 10K record of 28:46.

“After one kilometre, I was like, let me try to push the pace, because I saw an opportunity to get the world record,” Ngetich told World Athletics. “When I reached 15 kilometres, I was so happy, because I got the feeling of ‘let me do this’, and there were only six kilometres left. Crossing the finish line with a world record by just one second was unbelievable.”

Jepchirchir’s record had come out of a far busier race. She won in Gdynia by two seconds from Melat Yisak Kejeta, with nine women home inside 67 minutes. Ngetich’s winning margin in Copenhagen was 50 seconds, and nobody else in the field broke 66. Three of the last four women-only records have been set at a world championship, Netsanet Gudeta’s 1:06:11 in Valencia in 2018 among them, because no other race on the calendar puts this many good women on a start line with no men in front of them.

Veronica Loleo ran 1:06:05 for silver. Bronze went to Rwanda’s Florence Niyonkuru in 1:06:08, a national record, with Daisilah Jerono fourth in 1:06:13. Kenya took the team title in 3:17:33 on the combined times of Ngetich, Loleo and Jerono, from the United States and Ethiopia.

Emma Grace Hurley took fifth, her 1:06:23 a personal best, and Jessica McClain was seventh in 1:06:53, also a best. Both were racing in Copenhagen because of what went wrong in Atlanta, where they were two of the three Americans led off course at the U.S. Half Marathon Championships after the lead vehicle was diverted, and World Athletics responded by letting the U.S. enter seven women rather than four. Weini Kelati Frezghi, the American record holder at 1:06:04, finished between them in sixth in 1:06:35.

That gives Ngetich three world records at the same time, once this one is ratified: the 10K in a mixed race at 28:46, the 10K in a women-only race at 29:27, and the half-marathon. Sunday’s gold was her second global title of 2026. She opened the year with the world cross-country title in Tallahassee, 42 seconds ahead of the next runner home, then ran a world-leading 28:58 over 10K in Lille and 8:08.95 for 3,000m in Monaco, the third-fastest of all time at that distance.

“I am now going to discuss with my coach what is ahead of me,” she said. “But I know I am coming back to track races in 2027, because there is a World Championships. It is my dream to win a gold medal on the track. It is the only one I am missing.”