Press Release - Berlin Marathon - 9/30/24

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
	
                BMW BERLIN-MARATHON with 54,280 Finishers:

An Ethiopian Affair: From Tigst Assefa to Tigist Ketema - and back in 2025?

The mantle of victory has been passed from Tigst Assefa to Tigist Ketema. 
With this triumph the prize of winning the prestigious BMW BERLIN-MARATHON 
remains not only within the same training group in Addis Ababa but among 
friends. Shortly before, Milkesa Mengasha had been the first man through 
the Brandenburg Gate, leading a record number of 54,280 finishers across 
the line in the 50th anniversary edition of the race. The Ethiopian triumph 
was complete.
 
Milkesa Mengesha and Tigist Ketema offer examples of two athletes who have 
won Berlin while being relative newcomers to the marathon. They are 
standard bearers for a new generation of runners. Mengesha is just 24 and 
was a 5,000m specialist only three years ago, running that distance in the 
Tokyo Olympics of 2021. Previously he was notable for winning the junior 
title at the 2019 World Cross Country Championships. In Berlin on Sunday he 
improved his marathon best by over two minutes in running 2:03:17 to secure 
his place among the world elite. He ran the third fastest time in the world 
this year and reflected: "I'd done many tough training sessions which 
turned out to make the race a little easier for me and I could enjoy it. 
The atmosphere was wonderful." Milkesa Mengesha comes from the western 
province of Welega in Ethiopia and has six siblings.
 
After Tigst Assefa had improved the course record to 2:15:37 in 2022 and 
pulverised the world record with 2:11:53 in Berlin last year, her training 
partner Tigist Ketema has in turn won the event. As with Assefa, she was 
originally a middle distance runner then made, so successfully, the 
enormous move up to the classic distance of marathon. Ketema was third at 
800m in the World Junior Championships of 2016. But that didn't prove fast 
enough to have a lasting impact on the event internationally. Hence she 
changed to the marathon, training for around a year before making her 
debut. It proved a sensational triumph, achieving the fastest woman's time 
ever as a debutant of 2:16:07 in Dubai in January. "I had some fears about 
the distance - but now ask myself, why was that?" explained Tigist Ketema 
after her win in Dubai.
 
"My plan was actually to run a personal best in Berlin. But I am delighted 
with the win and about my time," said Ketema, who is part of the training 
group of Gemedu Dedefo in Addis Ababa. Apart from the world record holder 
and Olympic silver medallist Tigst Assefa, others in the group include the 
World champion Amane Beriso and the men's Olympic champion Tamirat Tola. 
They combine to make perhaps the strongest training group in the world at 
present.  
 
Will the winning sequence for this group continue next year? "I would like 
to compete in Berlin in 2025 and write another wonderful page in history," 
announced Tigst Assefa when she appeared as a guest of honour at this 
year's BMW BERLIN-MARATHON. The world record holder sees further potential 
for improvement and even said in an interview with the British magazine 
'Athletics Weekly' earlier this year: "In future, I'd like to run under 
2:10!"

More information is available online at: www.berlin-marathon.com 

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