The six Spanish athletes who will compete in the Budapest World Marathon

The Spanish athletics team will go with all the artillery in world championship marathon, with two full teams of three athletes comprised of some of the fastest marathoners in the history of the discipline, including current record holders. In total, six athletes were shortlisted after meeting the criteria established by coach José Peiró and the RFEA Sports Department.

The World Cup will be held in Budapest from August 19 to 27, while the marathon events will take place on Saturday the 26th (women) and Sunday the 27th (men).

The Spanish record holder of 42,195 km marta galimany and Ayad Lamdassem will lead this sextet of guarantees in Budapest.

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Five years after her debut as a marathon runner, and after several failed attempts (three times she dropped below 2:30), Marta Galimany broke the Spanish record with 2:26:14 in Valencia Marathon on December 4, 2022. Since then, he has competed in two half marathons, stopping the clock at 1:11:28 in Paris and 1:11:47 in Berlin. Budapest will mark its fifth major championship, after the Olympic Games in Tokyo 2020, the World Cup in Doha 2019 and the Europeans in Berlin 2018 and Munich 2022.

Ayad Lamdassem He broke his second Spanish marathon record in Seville on February 20, 2022 with 2:06:25 (he had previously achieved it by 10 seconds). This is the chronometric confirmation of the icing on the cake of his career as a marathon runner: fifth place at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. In addition to the three Games (2008, 2012 and 2020), Lamdassem defended the colors of the Spanish athletics team in three World Cups (2009, 2013 and 2017) and four Europeans (2010, 2012, 2016 and 2022), the last which resulted in sixth place in Munich. In February, he completed the osaka marathon at 2:08:32.

The rest of the women’s team is completed by the second and third Spaniards of all time. They are certainly two athletes who have entered the ranks in the last two months. Meritxell Soler He made his marathon debut on February 19 in Seville, directly threatening Galimany’s record: he did 2:26:37, the best Spanish debut ever and the second record of all time. For Soler, the World Cup in Budapest will be his second cap with the Spanish team after 10,000 m European Cup at Pacé in 2022.

The third shortlist is fatima ouhaddou, which exploded as a road runner last year. In October he set his personal best in a half marathon at 1:10:37, the seventh Spanish ever; and last Sunday, April 16, he debuted in the marathon in Rotterdam with 2:26:44 and a prestigious fourth place as the best European, ahead of the continental champion. Alexandra Lisowska.

The men’s team complete it Tariku Novales and Abdelaziz Merzougui, fourth and 12th Spanish all-time. After overcoming a serious injury, Novales “re-debuted” the marathon on December 4 in Valencia (it was released in Madrid in April, but it was not prepared as a goal) and he did it in a big way: he placed fourth in the historic ranking with 2:07:18 and became the youngest Spaniard to reach under 2:08, in 24 years and 271 days. The World Cup will be his debut.

merzouguiOn the contrary, he knows what the colors of the national team represent on many occasions. As an obstacle, he went to two Olympic Games (2012 and 2016) two Europeans (2012 and 2016). In 2021 he made the jump to the marathon, debuting in 2:08:52 and in the last edition of Valencia he further lowered his record to 2:08:00. In Budapest he will run his second marathon wearing the Spanish shirt after the European one in Munich.