Half Marathon Takes Centre Stage for Day Two of World Road Running Championships

Day two of the World Road Running Championships began with the women’s half marathon, where Alex Bell and Samantha Harrison produced impressive performances to secure top-30 finishes for the Novuna GB & NI team.

A lead pack formed early in the cool conditions in Denmark’s capital before Kenya’s world cross-country champion, Ngetich, broke clear of the field to establish a commanding advantage. At the 10km mark, Bell and Harrison remained well positioned in 31st and 33rd respectively, around two minutes behind the leader.

Ngetich maintained her relentless pace throughout, crossing the line in 1:05:15 to set a new women-only half marathon world best. Harrison finished 27th in 1:09:34, while Bell placed 30th in 1:10:21, as the British pair delivered strong performances in a high-quality field of 111 athletes.

Speaking after the race, Samantha Harrison said: “I thought I was in 68-minute shape, so to run 69 and a half was a little bit disappointing. Most of it was solo towards the end and it was very windy. I don’t want to make any excuses, but it does make it a lot tougher. You are just fighting most of the time.”

The men’s race began with a large pack through the opening kilometre, with Alfie Manthorpe and Alex Wigfield among the 30-odd athletes in the lead field. Around the 5km mark, a smaller lead group broke away and gradually increased the pace.

Jack Rowe led the British contingent through 10km, passing the checkpoint in 28:29 while sitting in 19th place. However, his race came to an unfortunate end when he was forced to stop at around the 18km mark and could not continue.

At the front, a thrilling battle developed between Sweden’s Andreas Almgren and Kenya’s Kipkorir, with the European record holder eventually taking victory in a sprint finish.

Wigfield was the first Briton home, finishing 36th in 1:01:49, an impressive performance in a field of more than 100 athletes. Charlie Wheeler followed in 47th place, clocking a season’s best 1:02:18 after running much of the second half of the race alone, while Manthorpe finished 54th in 1:02:40.

The Novuna GB & NI men placed 12th in the team standings, finishing as the second-highest European nation in the competition.

Joe Wigfield said: “I am happy with how I raced. Obviously, you always want a good time, and I feel like at the road championships you always want to get a good time. Seeing what the weather was like, it was blowing a gale, and the way everyone went off at the start was far too fast for me. I had a bit of a dry throat in the build-up. I didn’t want to spike it straight away. I thought people would start coming back to me after the start and after about 10km, so it was about working through the field and running it tactically well.

“I am happy with that, as I think I ran it tactically well. It was a good time, but I wanted to go faster. It was not about that today.”

Charlie Wheeler said: “It’s quite tough today. To be honest, I probably ran to where my fitness was. I’m just not super fit at the moment. I knew I wanted to race the first part conservatively because of that and try to move through. I let the groups go up the road, which meant I was on my own for a lot of it, having to work into the wind, and even then I was a bit too fast. Although I went past people in the second half, I was still slowing down, so I think there were a lot of people who were overcommitted.

“But there was Wigfield’s group ahead, about 15 seconds up the road, so I thought that if I could get there by about 12km and get into that group, that would have been good, but I just couldn’t get there.

“I couldn’t bridge across in the wind, and it became a long solo trek home, basically trying not to slow down too much for the rest of the race.

“Not a super-great day, to be honest. That’s where I am at the moment. If I can get another five weeks of good training in between now and Valencia, then I should be in a good spot.”