The 2023 Sofi Malt Great Ethiopian Run International 10km is offering a record prize purse of 812,000 Ethiopian Birr (just over USD $14,500.00), an increase of more than 30% on last year’s total and by far the biggest prize purse ever for a road race in Ethiopia.
The individual men’s and women’s winners will each win 200,000 ETB (USD $3,575) with 100,000 ETB and 50,000 ETB on offer for 2nd and 3rd places respectively. Last year’s race winners took home 150,000 ETB.
Explaining the increase in the prize structure, elite athlete coordinator Richard Nerurkar said: “You only need to look at the class of athlete winning this race to understand how important the race is to Ethiopia’s top athletes. We want to reward them accordingly.”
Among the recent male winners of the race are Solomon Berega (2017) Hagos Gebrhiwot (2018), Berihu Aregawi (2019) and Abe Gashaw, the only male athlete to have won the title three times. On the women’s side Yalemzerf Yehualaw has twice won the race in recent years (2019 and 2021) while other winners have included Zeineba Yimer (2017), Foiten Tesfaye (2018) and Tsige Gebrselama (2020).
This year’s race will again feature a clutch of strong east African athletes including three young Ugandan athletes managed by Global Sports Communications. Jurrie van der Velden describes this race as “a valuable learning ground for our athletes” and “a great motivator for our training group.”
The list of elite athletes competing in this year’s race will be released on Tuesday 15th November 2023.
About the elite races at the Great Ethiopian Run International 10km (2001-2022):
- The first race winners in 2001 were Haile Gebrselassie and Berhane Adere. The winners of the 22nd edition last year were Abe Gashaw and Tigist Ketema.
- Only two athletes, Genet Getaneh (in 2004 and 2005) and Wude Ayalew (in 2007 and 2008) have successfully defended their race titles.
- The elite races have always been won by Ethiopian athletes. Kenyan athletes have twice finished second, once in the men’s race and once in the women’s race.
- Wude Ayalew and Abe Gashaw are the only athletes to have won the race three times: Wude in 2007, 2008, and 2014 and Abe in 2016, 2020 and 2022.
- The fastest winning time for the men’s race is by Deriba Merga in 2006 (28:18) and for the women’s race by Yalemzerf Yehualaw in 2021 (31:17)
The 2023 Sofi Malt Great Ethiopian Run International 10km takes place on Sunday 19th November 2023. 45,000 runners have registered for the race. The race is being livestreamed on EBC with start times of 8.18am (men) and 8.23am (women) local time (GMT + 3)
For more information: www.ethiopianrun.org
