Degefa to share fortune with poor

Course record breaker Tola to use his winner’s purse to help boost own career

It was a dream run for both the winners of the men’s and women’s race of the Standard Chartered Dubai marathon.

Worknesh Degefa, making her debut in the marathon, won the women’s race registering the eleventh fastest marathon debut ever, while Tamirat Tola, who won the men’s race, shattered the Dubai Marathon course record.

Both were awarded $200,000 each for their feat.

When Gulf News asked Degefa what she plans to do with the unexpected fortune, the Ethiopian runner said: “There are lot of poor children in my country and I want to give some of the money to them. I also want to help my family and the rest I will invest on my future. I want to improve, run faster through more training.”

Over the years, 26 year-old Degefa has been winning half marathons.

In the past four years she has achieved top times between 66 and 69 minutes.

In fact, she has run quicker than 70 minutes on 17 different occasions and that prompted her to try a full marathon. Last year, Degefa won the New Delhi half marathon in 67:42.

Talking about her run yesterday, Degefa said: “After 35k everything was very hard. I looked around and saw everybody looking tired. I decided to push a little bit and that helped.”

Degefa is now eyeing a run in the World Championship.

When men’s winner Tola was asked what he plans to do with the prize money, he said: “I will now try and get what I did not have to run faster. I want to run under 2:04 and try and participate in many more competitions. This money will help me.”

It was the Dubai Marathon 2014 that fetched him his personal best. In fact, he revealed that he had even planned to run under 2:04 here.

“I had participated here three years ago and finished fourth and I am so happy that this year I am the winner. The pace was very fast at the start. The 15k time (43.26) was much too fast but when we saw that Kenenisa was well behind, I became more confident. I’m happy to win but I think I could have run under 2.04”. Tola has an Olympic bronze medal for 10,000m in 2016. Last year, he showed signs of his rise as a top class runner by recording his fastest ever half marathon in 60:06 to finish fifth in the World Half Marathon Championship in Cardiff, Wales. And he certainly carried his form into the Dubai Marathon this year.