Oman Desert Marathon 165km 2025 – Stage 4

It was a morning of relaxation in bivouac, today, stage 4, has the participants starting at staggered times based on ranking. The first departure 1400, the second 1500 and lastly, the fast group at 1700.

The start times are designed to allow all participants to experience the Oman Desert under darkness.

The 30km stage starts with 6.8km’s of dunes and then after a left turn, the route takes a direct line to the finish line and final bivouac night before the final stage tomorrow.

In the 1500 departure, the top women raced head-to-head and unsurprisingly, Aziza Raji once again dominated in 03:59:21 followed by Lydia Oldham, 04:20:23 and today Tanja Schoenenborn, 04:46:13, had a very strong day finishing 30-minutes ahead of Sally Ford.

In the men’s race, it was all guns blazing from the off with Rachid El Morabity setting a super fast pace. It came as a surprise as he has taken the first three stages very relaxed.

He pushed ahead and at cp1 had an 8-minute lead. He continued the charge and crossed the line in 02:37:43.

Behind, Saleh Alsaidi and Mohamed El Morabity chased both pushing each other hard. The elastic eventuall snapped and Mohamed pulled away to cross in 02:44:22, 6-minutes 39-seconds behind his brother. Saleh secured third in 02:50:06.

The final and fifth stage tomorrow will have the participants run a 21km stage. It’s a flat and fast stage with just a short section of dunes to start the day.