Olympic triathlon champ Alex Yee clocks SENSATIONAL time in Valencia Marathon to become second-fastest Brit ever – Elite News

olympic triathlon champion Alex Yee He became the second-fastest Briton ever in the Valencia Marathon on Sunday, finishing seventh behind Kenya’s John Korir in 2:06:38.

To put that performance into context, the fastest marathon time ever by a Briton is Sir Mo Farah’s 2:05:11 at the Chicago Marathon in 2018, while the next best was Emile Keres’ 2:06:46 at the London Marathon last year.

Caress was here to help bring both Yee and fellow Brit Phil Sesseman up to speed, with the three having trained together over the past few months.

And all three of them tested it to perfection – Yee crossed the halfway point in 1:03:32 before adding a 1:03:06 second half for an impressive negative split.

Yee has devoted much of this year to marathon training, making her debut on home roads in London in April when she clocked 2:11:08.

But he clearly felt there was more to come and he focused on swimming, biking and running 26.2 miles before 2026, a year after winning gold in the triathlon in Paris, as the build-up to LA2028 began to accelerate.

And the output he produced in Valencia would put him way under the Olympic qualifying standard for the marathon, should he ever choose to choose that path.

best speed

Valencia had long been identified as the target of his second attempt of 26.2 miles – the time of year usually means ideal conditions for one of the world’s fastest marathons.

Temperatures in Spain were actually slightly above the norm – initially peaking at 14 degrees Celsius at 08:15 local time and rising to a low of 20 degrees by midday.

But Yee was finished before that as he and Sesemann executed their plans perfectly, with the help of superb pacemaking from Carreras, who finished fourth in the marathon at last year’s Olympics.

The British trio covered the first 10 km in 30:08 and at the halfway point (13.1 miles, 21.1 km) they were from 1:03:30 to 1:30:32, which was exactly on pre-race target.

They kept the pace going – at the 30km mark it was 1:30:23 and now the big question was could they keep it up to the end when the marathon really starts to get tough?

top class performance

The answer was a resounding ‘yes’ and it was Yee who overtook Sesemann in the closing stages, finishing seventh in the elite field, which must be considered one of the great sporting performances for an athlete moving to a different field.

Of course, Yee was a track runner before triathlon became his primary focus, but the marathon is a far cry from 10,000 meters.

Sesemann stopped the clock at 2:07:11, which was also a PB for him by six seconds.

The men’s race, meanwhile, was won by reigning Boston Marathon champion and 2024 Chicago Marathon winner Korir in impressive style in 2:02:24. It was a Kenyan double as the women’s title went to Joycelyn Jepkosgei in the fastest time of the year, 2:14:00.

Men’s Top 10 Results – Sunday 7 December: