Valencia half produced three men's marks that counted as no record

The results sheet from the Valencia Half Marathon has a strange column of asterisks. Steven Mills, posting as @srmills90, listed three men's performances from the race that were faster than a standing record but did not count as one.

His list: a Spanish record that was quicker than the European record but was not a European record, a US citizen who ran faster than the US record without it being a US record, and a French athlete who ran the fastest time ever by a Frenchman that was not a French record. Mills did not name the athletes or spell out the reasons, and ended the post with three dizzy-face emoji.

What happened up front

The headline results came earlier. Sheila Chepkirui won the women's race in 63:51, one second clear of fellow Kenyan Diana Wanza in 63:52, per CITIUS MAG. The pair became the sixth and seventh women ever under 64 minutes, with Chepkirui equalling the number five all-time mark.

In the men's race, Yaseen Abdalla ran 59:10 for eighth overall in his first official half marathon. CITIUS MAG says he took more than five minutes off the Sudanese national record. Abdalla lives and trains in the US and represents Sudan internationally, and he has raced the marathon at the 2024 Olympics and the 2025 World Championships, but had never raced a half before Valencia.

What it actually means

A fast half in Valencia is not automatically a record anywhere, and Mills's post is the cleanest illustration of why that line keeps confusing people. Nationality, the flag an athlete competes under and the rules each federation uses to ratify marks all sit between the clock and the record book. None of the three cases Mills flagged has been explained in his post, so take the list as a count of oddities rather than a dispute over any one result.

Steven Mills

@srmills90

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A US citizen running faster than the US record but not a US record

CITIUS MAG

@CitiusMag

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he knocked 5+ minutes off the Sudanese national record