It is the second successive year the event will be the official trial race for the half-marathon at the World Athletics Road Running Championships.
The prospect of earning qualification for September’s World Athletics Road Running Championships has attracted a top-class elite field for this year’s GetPRO Bath Half Marathon, which includes defending champions Jake Smith and Abbie Donnelly, plus Olympians Phil Sesemann, Jess Warner-Judd and Alex Bell.
It is the second successive year the Bath Half, which takes place on March 15, has been named the host of the official British Athletics trial race for the half marathon event at the World Athletics Road Running Championships.
Smith and Donnelly topped the podium last year with impressive wins: Smith – the fifth-fastest British half-marathoner in history – ran the quickest ever time by a British athlete on the Bath course (62:20), while Donnelly’s winning time of 69:54 was the second fastest by a British female in the event’s history.
Donnelly built on that performance by running 2:24:11 at the Frankfurt Marathon last October, a time that puts her seventh on the UK marathon all-time list.
Sesemann, who represented Great Britain in the marathon at the Paris Olympics, became the fifth-fastest British man of all-time over the 26.2-mile distance when he clocked 2:07:10 in Valencia last December. He set a half-marathon personal best of 61:22 when finishing third at the Antrim Half Marathon last August.
Joe Wigfield who has had an impressive start to 2026, is also on the men’s entry list. He equalled Rory Leonard’s British 10km record of 27:38 in Valencia in January, before returning to Spain for the Barcelona Half Marathon last month, where he clocked 61:16. Alfie Manthorpe, who ran 61:26 in Valencia last October, will also run in Bath.
Donnelly is part of a strong women’s field that includes Olympians Jess Warner-Judd and Alex Bell.
Warner-Judd is the fourth-fastest British woman in the half-marathon (67:06) and has competed in both the 5000m and 10,000m at the Olympics. She also finished seventh at the New York City Marathon last November on her debut over the distance.
Bell, an 800m finalist from the Tokyo Olympics, has flourished on the roads this year, recording personal bests in the 10km (30:57) and half-marathon (69:35) in Valencia and Dubai respectively.
The top two male and top two female finishers with the qualifying standard (61:30 for men and 69:30 for women) at the Bath Half Marathon will be selected for the Great Britain team for half marathon at World Road Running Championships in Copenhagen in September.
Currently, Wigfield and Manthorpe have the qualifying standard in the men’s race. No one in the women’s field has run the standard since the qualifying period began last September.
Many of the athletes taking on the Bath Half are using it as a tune-up for the London Marathon on April 26, including Smith, Sesemann and Manthorpe in the men’s race and Donnelly and Warner-Judd in the women’s event.
Elite women’s field
Jessica Warner-Judd (67:06)
Abbie Donnelly (69:05)
Lily Partridge (69:34)
Alex Bell (69:35)
Lauren McNeil (69:38)
Lucy Reid (70:29)
Charlotte Taylor (70:38)
Verity Hopkins (71:43)
Annabel Gummow (72:26)
Kate Estlea-Morris (72:27)
Esme Davies (73:14)
Rosie Hamilton-James (73:43)
Molly Smith (75:49)
Jade Morgan (Debut)
Megan Gadsby (Debut)
Elite men’s entry list
Elite men’s field
Jake Smith (60:31)
Ben Connor (60:55)
Joe Wigfield (61:16)
Phil Sesemann (61:22)
Alfie Manthorpe (61:26)
Ollie Lockley (63:01)
Ben Alcock (63:09)
Peter Le Grice (64:21)
Edward Buck (64:23)
Joshua Grace (64:27)
Josh Hobbs (64:29)
Robert Warner-Judd (64:37)
Ryan Thomson (64:40)
Christopher Thomas (64:43)
Dominic Nolan (64:49)
Cole Gibbens (65:00)
David Bishop (65:15)