Half marathon in the Emirates
Klosterhalfen cancels promising comeback
February 24, 2024, 1:14 p.m
With the dream of a double start at the Olympic Games, Konstanze Klosterhalfen begins her comeback. But the European champion quits the half marathon in the United Arab Emirates after ten kilometers.
The top German runner Konstanze Klosterhalfen has ended her comeback early after a long break from competition. The 5000 meter European champion dropped out of the half marathon in Ras Al Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates shortly after the ten kilometer mark. “I didn’t feel good, so I left the race,” said Klosterhalfen, according to a report from the “laufen.de” portal. Klosterhalfen surprisingly won her debut over the almost 21.1 kilometer long route in October 2022 in Valencia in 1:05:41 hours.
According to the specialist media, she was in the top group until she left the race “in unusually humid, partly foggy conditions, a bit of wind and temperatures of just under 20 degrees Celsius”. Klosterhalfen passed the ten-kilometer mark after 31:09 minutes, which would have been a personal best on the road. Her German record over 10,000 meters on the track is 31:01.71 minutes; on the road she ran 31:10 minutes in Cologne at the end of 2021. However, the intermediate times only count towards the leaderboard if the race is completed.
For the 27-year-old, her debut in the Olympic year was the first race since the previous summer. Klosterhalfen had canceled her start at the German championships at the beginning of July due to a stress reaction in her foot and was then also missing from the following World Championships in Budapest. The Leverkusen player had not been able to match her performance before. In October she told the “Bonner General-Anzeiger” that she was dreaming of a double start in Paris over 5,000 and 10,000 meters.
Two coaching changes in just a few months
Since then, Klosterhalfen has changed coaches for the second time in a short period of time. She is now looked after by Northern Irishman Gary Lough, the husband of the former marathon world record holder Paula Radcliffe. After switching supplier from Nike to Puma in April 2023, Irishman Alistair Cragg initially took over as coach.
She achieved her greatest successes under the guidance of Pete Julian, who came from the highly controversial Nike Oregon Project (NOP). Klosterhalfen joined the NOP in spring 2019, which was dissolved by Nike a few months later after head coach Alberto Salazar was banned for four years for doping violations. In 2021, Salazar was banned for life for sexual and emotional misconduct.
Klosterhalfen had been preparing for the half marathon on the Persian Gulf for six weeks in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa. According to “laufen.de”, Radcliffe made the following comments about the multiple German record holder’s exit: “It’s a shame that Konstanze wasn’t able to put the good training in Addis Ababa into practice today in the competition.” The Ethiopian Tsigie Gebreselama won the race in Ras Al Khaimah in 1:05:14 hours, while the Kenyan Daniel Mateiko won the men’s race in 58:45 minutes.