Abebe Afework slashed over a minute off the women’s race record in winning the Gold Coast Marathon on Sunday (2) while Takuya Noguchi thwarted Kenneth Mungara’s hopes of a hat-trick of overall victories with a narrow win.

Kenneth Mungara will be chasing a unique treble at the Gold Coast Marathon, an IAAF Gold Label Road Race, on Sunday (2).

Just three weeks after the end of the IAAF World Championships, world-class athletics returns to the Chinese capital on Sunday (20) in the form of the Beijing International Marathon, an IAAF Gold Label Road Race.

Canada’s capital plays host to another spectacular weekend of racing as the Ottawa 10k and Scotiabank Ottawa Marathon take place on Saturday (23) and Sunday (24) respectively.

Organisers of the Scotiabank Ottawa Marathon are expecting the event records to fall again this year, thanks to a faster course, higher calibre pacers and a highly competitive field of runners for the IAAF Silver Label Road Race on 24 May.

Kenyan trio Eliud Kipchoge, Bernard Koech and Bernard Kipyego have been working together for several months in their local training location of Kaptagat in a bid to make the 2014 ABN AMRO Rotterdam Marathon a race to remember on Sunday (13).

When Ethiopia’s Abebech Afework placed second at the ABN-AMRO Marathon Rotterdam last year, it was her highest ever finish in a marathon. But the 23-year-old Ethiopian heads to this year’s edition of the IAAF Gold Label Road Race fresh from a victory in Houston.

It speaks volumes of the quality of a race when a 2:05:38 clocking can be classed as “disappointing”. Without taking anything away from Tilahun Regassa’s victory in today’s (14) ABN AMRO Marathon Rotterdam, an IAAF Gold Label Road Race, the organisers were hopeful that the 2:04:27 course record would be broken.