Konstanze Klosterhalfen is taking part in a road run for the fourth time: at the half marathon in Valencia. The 5000-meter European champion shows an outstanding race on an unfamiliar route, conquers third place in the all-time European list of the best. And makes for a rare win.
Konstanze Klosterhalfen made a dream debut over the half marathon distance. The woman from Leverkusen won her first race over 21.0975 kilometers in 1:05:41 hours in Valencia and thus ran the third best time ever set by a European. "I'm very surprised and excited about what I've achieved today," said Klosterhalfen, who won ahead of Ethiopians Tsigie Gebreselama (1:05:45) and Hawi Feysa (1:06:00) and was the first non- African runner has won the half marathon in the port city in southeastern Spain since 2003.
The European champion over 5000 meters was only 23 seconds short of the German record set by Melat Kejeta, who took second place in Gdynia, Poland, at the 2020 Half Marathon World Championships in 1:05:18 hours. Sifan Hassan from the Netherlands holds the European record (1:05:15). Klosterhalfen reported that she lost some time in the last three kilometers: "I'll work on that in the next race and hopefully I can then break the German record."
Klosterhalfen had surprisingly won gold over the 5000 meters at the European Championships in Munich. She then prepared for her debut in Spain at an altitude training camp in Kenya. "I'm a bit excited, but I'm also happy," she said beforehand. "The new stimulus" in training is good for her.
The 25-year-old holds the German track records on distances from the mile over 3000 and 5000 up to the 10,000 meters, in the hall she is even the European record holder over 5000 meters. Before she started in Valencia, she rarely took action on the road, specifically only three times since 2017: once each over the mile, over 5 kilometers and most recently in December 2021 over 10 kilometers in the best time of 31:10 minutes.
