Rabat – Moroccan athlete Othmane El Goumri finished first at the 2019 Dublin Marathon with a record time of 2:08:05. The competition took place yesterday, October 27, in the Irish capital.
El Goumri’s performance was the fastest the annual event has seen since its launch in 1980. The previous record holder was the Kenyan runner Geoffrey Ndungu, who won the race twice in 2011 and 2012. His 2011 finish in 2:08:33 was the event’s record until this year.
The Moroccan runner outpaced Irish athlete Stephen Scullion, finishing ahead of him by less than four seconds.
More than 22,500 athletes from 50 different countries participated in this year’s Dublin marathon.
This achievement isn’t El Goumri’s first.
Born in 1992, the long-distance runner represented Morocco in two outdoor athletics world championships and one indoor world championship.
In 2013, El Goumri won the marathon at the Francophone Games in Nice, France. He also finished second in the Mediterranean Games in Mersin, Turkey, and third in the Islamic Solidarity Games in Palembang, Indonesia.
In 2016, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) sanctioned El Goumri for irregularities in his biological passport, an electronic document presenting the results of anti-drug tests.
Following the incident, the Moroccan Royal Athletics Federation (FRMA) suspended the runner from competing for two years.
This year, as his suspension ended, El Goumri participated in several marathons in Morocco. He finished second in Rabat marathon, in April, and in Marrakech marathon, in September.
