Ethiopians Almaz Ayana, the 2016 Olympic 10,000m champion, and Genzebe Dibaba, the 1500m world record holder, will make their marathon debuts in Amsterdam on Oct. 16.
Almaz Ayana, 30, shattered the 10,000m world record by 14.33 seconds in one of the astonishing performances of the Rio Games. Since then, that record has been lowered by another 16.42 seconds and is now held by another Ethiopian, Letesenbet Gidey.
Ayana returned to competition this year, nearly three years (and childbirth) since her last track race.
Ayana was third in the Great North Run half marathon on Sunday in 1:07:10, seconds behind Kenyans Hellen Obiri (the two-time Olympic 5000m silver medalist who makes her marathon debut in New York City on Nov. 6) and Peres Jepchirchir (reigning Olympic, New York City and Boston marathon champion).
Dibaba, 31, follows older sisters and fellow Olympic medalist Tirunesh and Ejegayehu into the marathon. Her 1500m world record (3:50.07) from 2015 still stands, though Kenyan Faith Kipyegon ran the second-fastest time in history (3:50.37) on Aug. 10.
Dibaba missed the 2019 World Championships (right foot injury) and Tokyo Olympics (didn’t race at Ethiopian trials). In between, on Dec. 6, 2020, she ran the then-fastest debut half marathon for a woman (1:05:18). Her next, and most recent, half marathon was on Feb. 19 in Dubai, where she did not finish.

On a day when Kenyan legend Eliud Kipchoge set a new men’s world record of 2:01:09, the women’s race started off at a blazing fast pace, too. D’Amato, a 37-year-old mother of two from Virginia, gave it a valiant effort, but she ultimately had to settle for a sixth-place, 2:21:48 showing in the wake of Ethiopia’s Tigist Assefa’s surprise victory in 2:15:37.
Tigist Assefa was bolstered by a strong pack of her Ethiopian countrywomen and Kenya’s Rosemary Wanjiru maintaining the hot pace up front. After coming through the halfway mark in 1:08:13, Assefa ran an almost unfathomably fast second half of the race and finished in a 1:07:25 negative split after surging away from Wanjiru to seal the win.
Assefa, a 28-year-old Olympic 800-meter semifinalist on the track in 2016, shocked the running world by running a 19-minute personal best and finishing with the third-fastest women’s marathon time in history. Only Brigid Kosgei’s 2019 world record of 2:14:04 and Paula Radcliffe’s 2003 record of 2:15:25 are ahead of Assefa on the all-time list. Assefa also broke the women’s course record in Berlin by outrunning the 2:18:11 mark set by Kenya’s Gladys Cherono in 2018.
Wanjiru wound up a distant second in 2:18:00 after running 1:09:43 over the back half of the race. Then it was a trio of Ethiopians Tigist Abayechew (2:18:03), Workenesh Edesa (2:18:51) and Sisay Meseret Gola (2:20:58) in third, fourth and fifth, respectively.