The curtain fell on the 28th edition of the Marrakech International Marathon with the victory of Ethiopian athletes in the marathon and Moroccan athletes in the half-marathon.
On a flat, fast course, and with favorable weather conditions, the participants had various objectives, some aimed at performance, others at improving their times.
From the start, the Kenyans and Ethiopians set the tone, forcing the other athletes to exert more effort to keep up with their pace. As for the marathon, while everyone expected the victory of the Kenyan Maudiche who dominated the race from start to finish, the Ethiopian Adihana Gebretsedik created a surprise by winning this edition in 02h 08 min 55 seconds, followed by the Moroccans Hicham Lekouahi 02h 10 min 24 sec and Salaheddine Bounaceur 02h 10 min 24 dry.
At the end of the race, Gebretsedik declared that he found no difficulty in winning the title, that he knew how to wait for the right moment to overtake the Kenyan athlete who was at the end of his strength.
For his part, Hicham Lekouahi stressed that the competition was tough because the African runners set their pace from the start. And to add that the encouragement of the public helped him to achieve this great performance. On the women’s side, the Ethiopian Ashu Kasim Babo arrived first with 02h 30 min 18 sec, while the Kenyans Beatrice Jeplagat Cherop and Alice Kibore Jepkmboi occupied 2nd and 3rd places with 02h 31 min 07 sec and 02h 32 min 28 sec respectively. Regarding the half-marathon, it experienced Moroccan domination among both men and women. Thus, concerning the men’s race, Mohamed Ziani came first with 01h 00 min 28 sec, at the same time beating the competition record held by his compatriot Mustapha El Aâziz. The 2nd and 3rd places were occupied by two other Moroccans, Abdennacer Fethi 01h 01 min 37 sec and El Aaraby Mohamed Reda 01h 01 min 45 sec.
On the ladies’ side, the podium was one hundred percent Moroccan, since Hayat Allaoui ranked first with 01h 14 min 36 sec, followed by Fatiha Asmid 01h 14 min 51 sec and Hajiba Lhassnaoui 01h 14 min 59 sec. At the end of the meeting, Mohamed Knidiri, director of the Marrakech Marathon and president of the Grand Atlas Association declared that the 28th edition was a great success, stressing that the number of participants exceeded 8,000 athletes, including 2,000 foreigners. And to specify that the objective of the organizers is to make the Marrakech marathon a world reference
