SYDNEY:
Untouchable Olympic champion Sifan Hassan shattered the course file Sunday to surge residence first in an historic Sydney Marathon, with Hailemaryam Kiros matching her feat within the males’s race.
Run for the primary time as one of many elite World Marathon Majors, Hassan was totally dominant, clocking a blistering 2hrs 18min 22sec forward of Kenya’s former world file holder Brigid Kosgei (2:18.56)
Ethiopia’s Workenesh Edesa Gurmesa, who got here third, received the race final 12 months in a then-record time, however Dutch multi-distance celebrity Hassan obliterated it by greater than three minutes.
Hassan, who will skip September’s World Athletics Championships in Tokyo after opting to prioritise Sydney, admitted she nearly misjudged her race.
“I pushed too laborious and I learnt a lesson,” mentioned the Ethiopian-born 32-year-old who has additionally received majors at London and Chicago. “I used to be so accomplished the final 10k.
“It is wonderful, I am actually grateful,” she added. “I am so glad to win with a course file. It is historical past, it is the primary main marathon (in Sydney) and I am the primary winner.”
The ladies’s race narrowed down to simply 5 leaders early on earlier than Hassan opened a commanding 40-second hole as she got here by 35km earlier than holding on to dash residence.
Kiros additionally produced a brand new file time, crossing the end line on the Sydney Opera Home in 2:06.06, 10 seconds away from fellow Ethiopian Addisu Gobena, a star of the long run aged simply 20.
Lesotho’s Tebello Ramakongoana was third.
Requested if he anticipated to interrupt the course file, Kiros mentioned: “Sure, as a result of I ready nicely.”
Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge, arguably the best males’s marathon runner of all time, failed in his bid to clinch a twelfth marathon main, ending ninth.
The 40-year-old was with the massive lead group at midway as they set a scorching tempo, however was dropped because the runners approached the 32km mark.
Kiros and Gobena led a seven-man breakaway earlier than the pair opened up a niche between the chasing pack and could not be caught.
Kiros made his transfer inside one kilometre of the end line to shave greater than 10 seconds off the earlier file set final 12 months by Kenya’s Brimin Misoi.
Regardless of being off the tempo, Kipchoge acquired the largest cheer when he crossed the end line.
Switzerland’s Marcel Hug received the boys’s wheelchair race and American Susannah Scaroni the ladies’s.
Round 35,000 runners, a file, competed over the picturesque 42.19 kilometre course by the town from North Sydney, over the Harbour Bridge to the end line on the forecourt of the Sydney Opera Home.
The race was elevated this 12 months because the seventh World Marathon Majors, placing it on a par with London, Tokyo, Boston, Berlin, Chicago and New York within the elite world sequence.
