Peres Jepchirchir will be a special guest at the 10km Sofi malt Great Ethiopian Run International

The reigning Olympic marathon champion Peres Jepchirchir will be a special guest at the 10km Sofi malt Great Ethiopian Run International, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, this Sunday. About 500 elite competitors will participate in the race, and more than 40,000 people are expected in the race in total.

Ethiopian legend Haile Gebrselassie, who is also a two-time Olympic 10,000m champion, started this race 20 years ago – at its first edition in 2001. Local athletes have dominated all its editions since then.

Peres Jepchirchir is a Kenyan professional long-distance runner who competes mainly in road-running competitions. She won the gold medal in the women’s marathon at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. She was the champion at the 2016 World Half Marathon Championships and again at the 2020 World Half Marathon Championships.

Her best time for the half marathon of 1:05:06, set on 10 February 2017 in UAE, is a former half marathon world record. She holds the women’s only half marathon world record of 1:05:16 set at the 2020 World Half Marathon Championships in Gdynia, Poland, which was an improvement on her own previous record.