Vivian Cheruyiot shattered the course record at the EDP Lisbon Half Marathon, an IAAF Gold Label Race, on Sunday.

In the men’s race, won by Ethiopian Mosinet Geremew, 14 runners finished in under 1:01.

Cheruyiot, the 2016 Olympic 5000m champion, ran on her own from the 10km point en route to her 1:06:34 victory, an improvement of her personal best, a 1:07:43 set at the Great North Run in 2018 by more than a minute.

Cheruyiot, 35, had promised to mount an assault on her personal best – and she followed through.

“It was a good race for me,” she said. “Only the strong wind made me run slower. I raced to beat my personal best, and I’m happy. It was a great test ahead of the London Marathon, next month,” she was quoted by the IAAF.ORG.

The race’s previous record was 1:08:22 set by Kenyan Rose Chelimo in 2015.

Elsewhere, Joyciline Jepkosgei won their New York City racing debuts at the 2019 United Airlines NYC Half on Sunday (17).

This was the first time that Jepkosgei, the half marathon world record-holder, won a race in the United States after she stopped the clock at 1:10:07. Jepkosgei, who is also the world championship silver medallist in the distance, became the sixth woman from Kenya to win the event, and the first to do so since 2014.

Jepkosgei, who is preparing for her full marathon debut beat compatriot Mary Ngugi who came through the finish line one minute later in 1:11:07 to take second place, 15-hundredths of a second ahead of last year’s champion, Ethiopia’s Buze Diriba.

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