Record participation at 24th Sofi Great Ethiopian Run

Ethiopia

More than 43,000 participants took part in the 24th edition of Ethiopia’s annual international 10km road race over the weekend.

This is a record, exceeding last year’s total by almost 5,000 runners.

A host of distance running legends led by race founder Haile Gebrselassie attended the race.

The Olympian and laid out his ambitions for the event on Sunday (Nov. 17).

"After this we do not focus on the number but what we focus on are elite athletes. We need to invite many big names all aroud the world that is our target, beside that , make sure we keep this numbers, we can keep this atmosphre, we can keep the quality of the race, that is really the most important."

The Sofi Malt Great Ethiopian Run International 10km race was staged at its familiar venue of Meskel Square in the heart of Ethiopia’s capital city.

It had been awarded World Athletics Label status, for the first time ever.

Kenya’s newly-crowned world marathon record holder Ruth Chepngetich was present.

It was her first time to Ethiopia.

"It has been nice seeing athletes, you know im always a competitior, so i do not see the crowd at the back , and today i have experience it, it was an amazing race ..amazing audience, athletes," she said all smiles.

In the women’s race Ethiopia’s Asayech Aychew fulfilled her pre-race billing as race favourite by winning in a time of 32 minutes and 13 seconds. In the men's race, Binyam Mehari, who won last year, reitered his featand bested his time to end the race in 28 minutes and 25 seconds.

Both winners took home cash prizes of 250,000 Ethiopian birr (just over USD $2,000) in a total prize purse of 1.3 million birr.