Kwizera Breaks Spanish Record, Chepkirui Wins Valencia Half Marathon 2026 by One Second

File Photo: Sheila Chepkirui in action at the 2024 TCS London Marathon. Photo: Katie Chan / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Spain didn’t just win the Valencia Half Marathon on Sunday. It rewrote its own history by 96 seconds.

Rodrigue Kwizera, who switched allegiance from Burundi to Spain, clocked 58:03 to shatter the Spanish national record of 59:39 and take the men’s title at one of Europe’s fastest road races. His training partner and fellow Spaniard Thierry Ndikumwenayo crossed in 58:09 to make it a Spanish 1-2, with Kenya’s Victor Kipruto rounding out the podium in 58:12.

Five men finished inside 59 minutes. All of them ran personal bests. That tells you everything about the kind of day Valencia served up.

In the women’s race, Kenya’s Sheila Chepkirui won in 1:03:51, one single second ahead of compatriot Diana Wanza (1:03:52) in a finish that would have made even the finish-line announcer sweat. Both women moved onto the all-time half marathon list with those performances. Wanza’s run was particularly stunning: she improved her personal best by more than three minutes.

Kwizera Rewrites the Spanish Record Books With a 96-Second Margin

The previous Spanish half marathon record of 59:39 had been the benchmark. Kwizera obliterated it by a minute and 36 seconds. That is not a marginal improvement. That is a generational leap on a national record, and it happened with Ndikumwenayo right behind him at 58:09.

To have two Spanish athletes inside 58:10 on the same morning, with the rest of the top three all under 58:13, gives you a sense of how quick the conditions were and how loaded this field had been set up to run. Valencia’s flat, sheltered course has a well-earned reputation as a fast track. Sunday confirmed it again.

Kenya’s Victor Kipruto finished third in 58:12, and the depth behind him was equally impressive. Tadese Worku (ETH) ran 58:33 for fourth, while Owen Kapkama (KEN) crossed in 58:42 for fifth. Jemal Yimer (ETH) dipped under the hour in 59:01 in sixth, with James Kipkosgei (KEN) going 59:03 for seventh. Three more men — Yaseen Abdalla (SUD), Daniel Ebenyo (KEN) and Melkeneh Azize (ETH) — all finished in 59:12 to 59:20 to complete a top 10 that reads like a world championship start list.

Chepkirui Edges Wanza by One Second in a Women’s Race for the Ages

If the men’s race was about Kwizera dismantling a record, the women’s race was a flat-out fight to the line. Sheila Chepkirui crossed in 1:03:51, Diana Wanza in 1:03:52. One second after 21 kilometres of racing. The kind of finish that makes spectators lose their voices.

Chepkirui’s 1:03:51 placed her joint fifth on the all-time women’s half marathon list. Wanza, whose effort improved her personal best by more than three minutes, moved to sixth. That the second and third place performances came within less than three seconds of each other speaks to how fiercely contested the front of this race was.

Daisilah Jerono (KEN) completed the women’s podium in 1:04:11. Behind her, four more Kenyan and Ethiopian athletes clustered between 1:04:54 and 1:05:02, and six women in total crossed the line under 65 minutes. On the domestic front, Spain’s Laura Luengo Caselles set a new Spanish national record in 1:08:28, adding a second national record story to an already historic afternoon in Valencia.

What This Result Means for Spain and for Valencia’s Reputation

Kwizera’s story is one of the more compelling in European distance running. A former Burundian international who now competes for Spain, he has built his athletics identity in the same training environment as Ndikumwenayo. That both men ran within six seconds of each other, with Kwizera setting the national record and Ndikumwenayo not far behind, says a great deal about the quality of the programme they are part of.

For Valencia itself, Sunday was another argument for the city’s place alongside Berlin, Chicago and London as a genuine world-class venue for fast road running. The full marathon in December regularly produces some of the fastest times of the year, and this half marathon has now shown it can pull elite fields that deliver at that level too. The infrastructure, the course, the weather conditions in October: it all adds up.