Ethiopia’s Yalemzerf Yehualaw ran the second-fastest women’s half marathon in history yesterday, completing the 21.09-kilometre course in New Delhi in one hour, four minutes and 46 seconds.
The 21-year-old, whose previous personal best was 1:05:19 set during the world half marathon championships in Gdynia last month, shaved one minute and 14 seconds off the event record at the Airtel Delhi Half Marathon.
She won $27,000 in prize money and an additional $10,000 as an event record bonus. The overall women’s half marathon record of 1:04:31 was set by Ethiopia’s Ababel Yeshaneh at Ras Al Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates in February.
Yehualaw’s compatriot Amdework Walelegn won the men’s race in the Indian capital yesterday with a time of 58 minutes and 53 seconds, the third-fastest time of the year and also an event record by 13 seconds.
More than 60 professional runners took part in the race, while several hundred enthusiasts ran in other cities on routes of their choice, using a mobile app to post race timings, organisers said. 
It was one of the country’s first major sporting events since the pandemic started.
Forty-seven professional runners hit the 21-kilometre (13.1-mile) course in the men’s and women’s event, while amateur participants raced between Wednesday and yesterday to prevent overcrowding.
The route was sprayed with chemicals to minimise the effect of Delhi’s annual toxic smog, which blankets the megacity in winter due to traffic and industrial pollution, crop stubble burning and cold temperatures. The air quality index — which monitors tiny PM2.5 and PM10 particles that get into the bloodstream and vital organs — was at 244 and in the “poor” category, the Central Pollution Control Board said yesterday.