Slow start no problem for Dubai Marathon women’s winner Mula Seboka Seyfu

Record turnout for Dubai Marathon as Ethiopian takes women's title

Standard Chartered Dubai Marathon women's winner Mula Seboka Seyfu receives her trophy from Dubai Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed on Friday. AP Photo

DUBAI // The entrepreneur distributing promotional business cards for Al Falah Shoe Repairs along Umm Suqeim Road as the sun came up on Friday may find himself particularly busy on Saturday.

More than 23,000 runners pounded the streets of Dubai in the early hours in what was a record turnout for the Middle East’s most distinguished marathon, which includes the 42-kilometre road race, the 10km contest and a 3km fun run. The overall figures represent nearly a 17 per cent increase on 2013.

By midday, 2,722 runners had completed the full Standard Chartered Dubai Marathon, 300 more than took part last year.

“It has been fantastic,” said Peter Connerton, the event director. “Every year, we seem to see our figures rise by close to 20 per cent, and we’re now almost at the stage where the 10km and the 3km have reached their limit. The marathon is not at that level just yet and that is what we are focused on growing, going forward.”

Tsegaye Mekonnen Asefa, an 18-year-old Ethiopian, took the headlines after breaking the world junior record, while his compatriot, Mula Seboka Seyfu, was the first woman to cross the finish line.

Seyfu, 29, has extensive experience at marathon level, with victories in Toronto and Mumbai. She finished here in two hours, 25 minutes and one second, which proved to be Dubai’s slowest winning time for the women since 2007.

She said she had started a little sluggishly and, with 4km remaining, found herself doubting her own ability alongside Meselech Melkamu Haileyesus and Firehiwot Dado Tufa.

“I am very lucky,” she said. “There were three people together at one stage and I was thinking at that time that they are both very fast. At 38km, though, I felt better than them and that is when I pulled away.

“I have won some big marathons before, but never something as big as this. The Dubai Marathon is a major marathon nowadays, so to win it is special. There is big money involved and big prestige.”

Seyfu’s victory came with a cheque for US$200,000 (Dh734,600), some of which she intends to donate to an Ethiopian orphanage foundation.

The fate of rest of the money, she said, would depend on the outcome of discussions with her husband, “because to decide alone is difficult”.