Marathon des Sables 2024 results: Rachid El Morabity equals record as Aziza El Amrany wins women's title

A thrilling finish to the 38th edition of the ‘Marathon des Sables legendary‘ race saw Rachid El Morabity claim his 10th title thanks to victory on the sixth and final stage.

It moved him just ahead of his younger brother Mohamed, who had looked in complete command of the race until the fifth stage when injury struck, with Aziz Yachou rounding out an all-Moroccan men’s podium in the overall classification.

Rachid becomes the second man to have won the ‘world’s toughest foot race’ 10 times, equalling Lahcen Ahansal, who won for the first time in 1997, then every edition from 1999 to 2007.

It was far less close in the women’s race as Aziza El Amrany completed an emphatic overall victory over fellow Moroccan Aziza Raji as they also finished one-two on the final stage.

Men’s race – Rachid does just enough

Short and rolling, the 21km sixth stage was completed in a blink of an eye, with Rachid first home in one hour, 22 minutes and five seconds.

That was just two seconds ahead of Aziz Yachou, with third place going to Mohamed, the title holder and overall leader by 35 seconds ahead of the last stage.

The big question had been whether Rachid could make up enough time on his brother to move ahead in the overall standings and when Mohamed crossed the line one minute and 10 seconds later we had our answer.

So the overall podium was Rachid, Mohamed and Aziz, with Hamid Yachou following his brother in fourth and Yoann Stuck fifth.

“I’m very happy to have won. See you next year,” said an understandably delighted Rachid afterwards.

Rachid El Morabity wins 2024 Marathon des Sables — Rachid El Morabity takes the win [Photo credit: Marathon des Sables]

And Mohamed was happy for his brother, saying: “Rachid has won 10 times, which is good. I wasn’t feeling well yesterday. Today was fine. We’ll be back next year.”

Aziz, second in the stage and third overall, had mixed feelings: “I’m happy, but I’ll be back next year and I’ll be stronger and better trained.”

Women’s race – El Amrany dominant

There was no such drama in the women’s race as Aziza El Amrany won by over two hours from 2021 winner Aziza Raji following an imperious performance from start to finish.

She rounded it off in style too by winning the sixth stage, her fifth victory of the race, in a time of 1:41:21, which was also enough for 16th place overall.

Raji crossed the line 15 minutes later, with France’s three-time former winner Laurence Klein in third.

But third in the overall standings was Britain’s Gemma Game, the same position she filled in both 2018 and 2019.

With this victory, El Amrany becomes the third Moroccan woman to win the race after Touda Didi (2008 and 2009) and Raji. She was third in 2022 and runner-up last year.