Ethiopia’s Kelkile Gezahegn successfully defended his title at the Lanzhou Marathon, while Bahrain’s Merima Mohammed won the women’s contest by a narrow margin at the IAAF Gold Label road race on Sunday (10).

Now in its fifth edition, the Orlen Warsaw Marathon taking place this Sunday (23 April) is once again poised to be the highlight of the Polish road racing circuit.

Sometimes the winner of a marathon emerges so emphatically in the final stages that you wonder why you never rated them for the first 40 kilometres. Other times the champion is obvious from the start. There was one of both types as Tomohiro Tanigawa and Makda Harun raced to victory in the Blackmores Sydney Marathon, an IAAF Gold Label race, on Sunday (18).

There are many unknowns about the marathon, but the 2016 Blackmores Sydney Marathon on Sunday (18) offers a little more intrigue than the average 42.195km journey.

The 37th Vodafone Istanbul Marathon, an IAAF Gold Label Road Race, will see defending women’s champion Amane Gobena return to the Turkish city with the aim of chasing the course record of 2:27:25 on Sunday (15).

South Africa’s Stephen Mokoka and Ethiopia’s Aberu Kebede gave the course records a scare at the 14th edition of the Shanghai International Marathon but ultimately both marks, set 12 months ago, remained unbeaten at the IAAF Gold Label Road Race on Sunday (1).

Officially, the Bank of America Chicago Marathon is USA’s fastest legal Marathon course, home of the US all-comers’ records for both men (Tsegaye Kebede’s 2:04:38) and women (Paula Radcliffe’s 2:17:18).

Ethiopia’s Boru Feyse Tadese set a world-leading time and women’s course record of 2:21:05 today (7) at the 37th edition of the Schneider Electric Marathon de Paris, an IAAF Gold Label Road Race, while Kenyan Peter Some was the surprising winner of the men’s race in 2:05:38.

On a day where Ethiopia dominated all four races, 20-year-old Merima Mohammed overcame leg problems and cold, wet conditions to run the second-fastest ever women’s race at the Chevron Houston Marathon on Sunday (13), while countryman Bazu Worku, 22, ran away with the men’s title.