COPENHAGEN (19-Sep) — The second edition of the World Athletics Road Running Championships began today with the one-mile races in the morning and the 5-K’s in the afternoon. In cloudy, chilly and windy conditions a pair of Europeans won the mile, while two Africans won the 5-K’s. A total of 199 athletes finished the four elite races.
EUROPEAN SWEEP IN THE MILE
In the opening event of these championships, the mile, European athletes swept the gold medals. On the women’s side, Frenchwoman Agathe Guillemot timed her effort perfectly, waiting until the final meters of the U-shaped course to move to the lead and capture her first global title. Guillemot, 27, clocked a world-leading time of 4:22.74.
“It’s more of a fight than the time,” Guillemot told Race Results Weekly in English. “I think it’s better for me. I love to play with the girls. I think in the cross country and the road it’s more a game.”
Ethiopia’s Freweyni Hailu was the race’s early leader, and perhaps the gold medal favorite. Hailu, 25, who had already achieved world indoor titles at 1500m (2024) and 3000m (2025), went right to the front from the gun. Her move was quickly covered by Americans Addy Wiley and Gracie Hyde, and Guillemot slipped in behind them.
Although the early pace looked fast, the field bunched-up as the leaders made the two right turns to head toward the finish line. Wiley, the bronze medalist at the 2026 World Athletics Indoor Championships in the 800m, was still in contention, but the energy that carried her to the U.S. national road mile title back in April in Des Moines just wasn’t there.
“I felt really good for a little over a ‘K,’ Wiley told Race Results Weekly. She continued: “I felt really fresh and ready to go coming into it. Obviously, you have to take a few months of fatigue into account.”
Wiley would fade to finish tenth in 4:31.02, but Guillemot was just beginning to show her best form. As the final sprint to the line began, Guillemot surged forward, passed Hailu, and won by nearly two seconds. Her win was particularly gratifying after missing medals at both the World Athletics Indoor Championships and European Athletics Championships earlier this year by just one position.
“It’s a lot of happiness,” said Guillemot when asked to describe how she felt. “It’s hard to believe it. I train very hard every day. Fourth place at World Indoors, fourth place at Europeans. It’s good to have a medal at the end of the season.”
Hailu took the silver in 4:24.35, and the bronze medal went to Kenya’s Mirriam Cherop in 4:25.71. Denmark’s Annemarie Nissen was a surprise fourth place finisher in a personal best 4:26.78. A total of 48 women finished the race.
On the men’s side, it was a battle between two teammates who run for different countries. Robert Farken of Germany and Yared Nuguse of the United States both live and train in Boulder, Colorado, for the On Athletics Club under coach Dathan Ritzenhein. Farken, 28, hung back slightly as Nuguse shot to the front of the race right from the gun. Nuguse wasn’t trying to run away from the field, but rather assure a fast pace.
“I feel like I really wanted a hard pace where that would give me the best chance of winning,” Nuguse said. “So that’s exactly what I did.”
Nuguse continued to lead through halfway with Great Britain’s Jake Heyward and Farken in his slipstream. Nuguse held the lead until about 80 meters to go, when Farken came up to his shoulder.
“He was like, right next to me,” Nuguse recalled. “I was like, who is this?” He continued: “I saw it was Robert and I was like, good for Robert.”
Farken made the pass and got the win in a championships record 3:51.80, just half a second off of the official world record of 3:51.3 which would have earned him a USD 50,000 bonus in addition to his USD 10,000 first prize. For Farken, to beat Nuguse was an important personal accomplishment.
“You know Yared is like, unbeaten in our training group,” said Farken. “He’s always the guy I look up to and want to reach that level. It’s very special, very, very cool, to be the first one even if it’s not on the track.” He continued: “It’s very, very helpful for the fall and winter so we can push each other and help each other get better and better, especially with the world level rising and rising.”
Nuguse ran an excellent 3:52.33 to take silver, and the bronze medal went to Ruben Querinjean, steeplechaser from Luxembourg, who ran a national record 3:52.77. A total of 58 men finished the race.
AFRICANS TAKE 5-K TITLES
Athletes from Africa asserted their dominance in the 5-K in the afternoon. On the women’s side, Likina Amebaw of Ethiopia upheld her status as pre-race favorite, winning with relative ease in 14:41. For the men, relative newcomer Dawit Seare of Eritrea prevailed in a championships and national record of 12:56.
Amebaw, who is based in Spain, used an early surge by Great Britain’s Megan Keith as a springboard to go to the lead. After Keith went out hard from the gun, Amebaw ran behind her briefly before taking the lead just 99 seconds into the race. She hit the first kilometer point in 3:01 followed by Caroline Gitonga of Kenya and Charity Cherop of Uganda. Amebaw’s teammate Aleshign Baweke, and Australia’s Rose Davies were also close behind.
Amebaw picked up the pace in the second kilometer (2:52), and quickly the lead pack was down to three: Amebaw, Gitonga and Baweke. Davies was running alone in fourth. South Africa’s Tayla Kavanagh was just a little ways back, trying to stay in contact.
“I just wanted to give it my all,” Davies told Race Results Weekly. She continued: “I knew they were going hard and I knew I still had a chance. I felt good. I just really had to concentrate.”
Gitonga briefly took over the lead before the 3-K point (8:55), but then Amebaw showed all of her cards and shot ahead. On a cloudy, windy and cold afternoon here she would not be caught.
“I was thinking for win,” Amebaw said in English. “I training for this. I was practicing for that. So I was confident that I was going to win.”
Gitonga held her position to take second in 14:48, and both Davies and South Africa’s Tayla Kavanagh rolled-up Baweke and finished third and fourth in 14:50 and 14:51, respectively. Davies, who won both the 5000m and 10,000m at this summer’s Commonwealth Games, set an area record and Kavanagh set a personal best.
“I’m super-chuffed,” said Kavanagh, who talks even faster than she runs. “I know I’ve been in pretty good shape this year. So, coming into this race the goal was to run as fast as possible. I left it all out there.”
For Team USATF, Allie Ostrander was the top finisher in 12th place (15:10 PB), while Courtney Frerichs finished 17th in 15:25.
In the men’s competition –which was delayed 10 minutes due to a technical problem– all eyes were on Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen, fresh off of his 5000m victory at the World Athletics Ultimate Championships in Budapest on September 11. True to form, he ignored the fast early pace set by France’s Flavien Szot (2:38 through the first kilometer), and stayed slightly back where he could watch the action unfold ahead of him.
Szot, who was clearly pacing his French teammate Jimmy Gressier, quickly dropped back after hitting 2-K in 5:17. That left Gressier in the lead, but only briefly. Two Eritreans, Seare and Saymon Amanuel, pushed to the front along with the young Kenyan Charles Kiboino. The two Ethiopians, Addisu Yihune and Mezgebu Sime, remained close, and Ingebrigtsen continued to follow several meters back.
“When you don’t have endless power, you need to prioritize in order to increase your chances for making a good result,” Ingebrigtsen said of his strategy today.
At around the 4-K mark, Sime put in a very hard surge. Seare was the only athlete to cover the move, and the two men began to break away. Ingebrigtsen appeared to have missed the move and began to play catch-up.
“I must admit that my planning was a bit off,” Ingebrigtsen said. “I really felt it was heavy today, and the others were stronger and faster, and they pushed earlier than expected.”
Sime burned out quickly (he would finish seventh in 13:08), but Seare kept up the fast pace. Ingebrigtsen chased hard, and inside of 400 meters to go Ingebrigtsen passed Seare and appeared headed for victory.
“I thought I had to fight with all I had, and I think that I was a little bit too early going into the sprint,” Ingebrigtsen admitted.
In the final 50 meters of the race, Ingebrigtsen slowed and appeared (maybe?) to be limping slightly. Seare passed him to get the win. The Norwegian had to settle for second in a national record 12:59, and Amanuel got the bronze in 13:00. Australia’s Ky Robinson moved up from the chase pack to claim fourth in an area record of 13:04.
“I am very, very happy because I have been preparing very well for the last two months for this Championships,” Seare told the World Athletics flash quotes team. He continued: “I know Jakob is a very strong athlete. Especially in the last kilometer it was difficult to compete with him, but at the end I won and I am very pleased about that.”
Although no American athletes reached the top ten, Team USATF had something to celebrate. Drew Hunter set a pending national (and North American) record of 13:14, finishing in 11th place. He toppled both Ben True’s ratified record of 13:20 from the B.A.A. 5-K in Boston back in 2017, and Abdi Nur’s pending record of 13:17 set in Düsseldorf two weeks ago. The former high school star from Virginia was clearly pleased.
“I didn’t look at my watch one time; I just ran,” Hunter told Race Results Weekly. “All I was doing was running. It as an amazing event, probably one of the coolest things I’ve done in the sport. It was really special.”