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Kenya lead men's race, China dominate women's at Beijing Marathon
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-10-19 19:04 BEIJING - Kenyan runners showed a big advantage in the men's race at the 2008 Beijing International Marathon by sweeping the top three, while Chinese women prevailed on Sunday. Kiptoo Benjamin, winner of the 2008 Brescia Marathon, finished first in two hours 10 minutes and 14 seconds, while his countrymen Luka Chelimo and Wangai Simon took the silver and bronze respectively. The race started from the Tian'anmen Square and ended at the Olympic Sports Center. About 30,000 runners took part in this race including the full marathon (42.195km), half marathon (21.0975km), 10 kilometers and mini marathon (4.2km). "The whole race is excellent. We only know we've done our best," said Benjamin after the match. The Kenyan trio had some good performance in the last 7 kilometers, leaving the other runners far behind with stunning pace and stamina. "The winners always come from my country because we just trained very hard. There's no tips for our success but hard training," said Chelimo. Chen Wei was the first Chinese to finish with a time of 2:13:46. He admitted that he was not in his best form and fell to the ground after some 30 kilometers. China saved face in the women's race. Bai Xue won the event in 2:26:47 and Chen Rong and Zhang Yingying finished in 2:28:25 and 2:28:52, grabbing the top three places and upsetting Kenya's Kimutai Hellen and Chelangat Alice. The annual Beijing International Marathon has raised its prize money. The men's and women's winner each can get 20,000 US dollars, and an extra bonus of 42,915 US dollars will be given if any runner could beat the race best. Both Benjamin and Bai Xue missed the bonus as they failed to take down the men's 2:07:35 and the women's 2:19:38 records. |
