Eritrea\u2019s Habtom Samuel broke the course record at the Aramco Houston Half Marathon, winning the World Athletics Gold Label road race in 59:01. It was all the more remarkable, considering it was his international debut at the distance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Less than five months after winning the Diamond League 3000m title, Ethiopia\u2019s Fantaye Belayneh showed her versatility by winning the women\u2019s race with a huge PB of 1:04:49.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A large lead pack went through 5km in 14:13 in the men\u2019s race, and 13 men were still together at 10km, which was reached in 28:17. Samuel still had nine other men for company at 15km, reached in 42:20, with Kenya\u2019s Patrick Kiprop and Morocco\u2019s Mohammed El Youssfi pushing the pace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Approaching the 10-mile point, Kiprop tried to make a break, but it was relatively short lived and he was reeled in by Samuel, El Youssfi and USA\u2019s Isai Rodriguez. With little more than a kilometre to go, Samuel had carved out a lead, which he managed to maintain until the finish, crossing the line in 59:01 to become the first Eritrean winner in Houston.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kiprop held on for second place in 59:14, ahead of El Youssfi (59:21) and USA\u2019s Alex Maier (59:23).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the women\u2019s race, Belayneh ran alongside fellow Ethiopians Tsigie Gebreselama and Buze Diriba through 5km (15:12). Diriba drifted off the swift pace, but Belayneh and Gebreselama maintained it through 10km, reached in 30:35.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They continued to run shoulder-to-shoulder through 15km (45:58) and 20km (1:01:33). It was only in the closing stages that Belayneh, the African 5000m champion, managed to pull clear, crossing the line in 1:04:49 to take more than two minutes off her PB.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gebreselama was second in 1:04:52 and Diriba held on to third place in 1:05:57 ahead of USA\u2019s Taylor Roe (1:06:20).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the Chevron Houston Marathon \u2013 also a World Athletics Gold Label road race \u2013 USA\u2019s Zouhair Talbi (2:05:45) and Britain\u2019s Calli Hauger-Thackery (2:24:17) took top honours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Talbi was part of a seven-man group to go through half way in 1:03:04, but he picked up the pace and dropped his remaining opponents in the second half to win in a PB of 2:05:45.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hauger-Thackery, who had won the Honolulu Marathon just four weeks prior, ran with Janet Ruguru through 10km (33:23) and the half-way point (1:11:15) before the Kenyan\u2019s challenge faded in the second half. The Briton went on to win in 2:24:17, finishing more than two minutes ahead of USA\u2019s 42-year-old Sara Hall (2:26:26).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Eritrea\u2019s Habtom Samuel broke the course record at the Aramco Houston Half Marathon, winning the World Athletics Gold<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7909,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[50,318],"class_list":["post-7905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsbeat","tag-athletics","tag-half-marathon"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Samuel_compressed.jpg",2003,1127,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Samuel_compressed-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Samuel_compressed-300x169.jpg",300,169,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Samuel_compressed-768x432.jpg",640,360,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Samuel_compressed-1024x576.jpg",640,360,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Samuel_compressed-1536x864.jpg",1536,864,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Samuel_compressed.jpg",2003,1127,false],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Samuel_compressed-825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Samuel_compressed-590x410.jpg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"Newsbeat<\/a>","tag_info":"Newsbeat","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Samuel_compressed.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7905"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7905\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7907,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7905\/revisions\/7907"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}