Abebe Bikila 1960, 64& Feyisa Lilesa 2016

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Monday, January 19, 2015

Melese and Gidefa win in Houston as Ethiopians sweep again | iaaf.org








Near-perfect conditions yielded speedy performances at the 43rd Chevron Houston Marathon as Yebrqual Melese ran the second-fastest time ever by a woman in Houston and Birhanu Gidefa outkicked Gebo Burka to take the men’s title at the IAAF Bronze Label Road Race on Sunday (18).
Birhanu Gidefa on his way to victory at the Houston Marathon (Victah Sailer / organisers)It was the seventh straight sweep of the titles by Ethiopia. In fact, they filled the top five places in the women’s race and the three podium positions in the men’s contest.
An Ethiopian victory in the women’s race came as no surprise as a leading group of five athletes from the East African nation formed early on. Led by former Toronto Marathon runner-up Sechale Dalasa, the quintet passed through 5km in 17:23, 10km in 34:28 and half way in 1:12:43.
Former Los Angeles Marathon winner Fatuma Sado was the first to drop from the pack, slipping behind after 25km. Biruktayit Degefa Eshetu attempted to make a break soon after and at 30km she had a 14-second margin over her three compatriots, but she was soon reeled in by Guteni Shone Imana as the pair passed through 35km in 1:59:43.
Melese, who at 30km was some 17 seconds behind the leaders, then made her move. Having already dropped Dalasa, she closed in on Eshetu and eventually fought off the challenge of Shone on the way to a 2:23:23 victory, taking almost three minutes off her PB.
Shone finished second in 2:23:32, the third-fastest time ever at Houston and a seven-minute improvement on her previous best. Eshetu also dipped under the 2:24 barrier with a 2:23:51 clocking that moved her to fifth on the race’s list of fastest times.
Kellyn Taylor had an impressive debut to place sixth at 2:28:40 as the top US woman, three minutes ahead of 2014 US half-marathon champion Serena Burla, who crossed the line in 2:31:46 in seventh. Lindsay Flanagan and Taylor Ward were the other US women in the top 10, taking ninth (2:33:12) and 10th (2:38:30) respectively.
Gidefa was content to run with the pack for the early part of the race, cruising through the halfway point in 1:03:20. He stayed with the leaders through 30km at 1:31:06 and was six seconds behind Debebe Tolossa with more than four miles to go.
Burka made a strong push and pulled away from the pack, opening up a 14-second lead by 40km, but Gidefa fought back and passed Burka in the final 400 meters to win in 2:08:03, a lifetime best and the eighth-fastest time ever at Houston.
Burka’s 2:08:12 made him the ninth-fastest in race history, while Tolossa was third in 2:09:07. Kenya’s Dominic Ondoro also ran faster than 2:10, taking fourth place in 2:09:40.
Last year’s half marathon runner-up, Aaron Braun, moved up in distance to great effect, finishing as the top US man in 2:12:54 for seventh place, running negative splits to chop almost seven minutes off his personal best. Craig Leon also nabbed a top-10 finish for the US with his ninth-place 2:14:43.

Estrada and Conley win US half-marathon titles



Two different races produced two superb results in the Aramco Houston Half Marathon, which served as the US Championship race for the ninth time for men and seventh time for women.
Diego Estrada shot to the lead after running with the pack for the first 5km at 14:41, opening a 20-second gap by 10km (28:51) and stretching that margin to 45 seconds over Jared Ward at the 15km mark (43:14).
He tacked on five more seconds to his cushion by 20km (57:45) and eased to the finish at 1:00:51, the third-fastest time ever by US man and the third-fastest ever in Houston.
Ward finished well to clock 1:01:42 on his debut at the distance to move to ninth on the all-time Houston list, and Girma Mecheso was third in 1:02:16. Three-time champion Meb Keflezighi was fighting a cold and a sore back as he pursued his fourth US title and third straight, but battled through to take fourth place in 1:02:18.
US 10,000m champion Kim Conley bided her time through 10 miles at a fast pace, running with the leaders through 5km in 16:45 and 10km in 33:27. She shared the lead with 2006 champion Annie Bersagel at 15km (50:08) and then pulled away over the next 5km, running 16:12 for that portion of the race to pass 20km at 1:06:20 with a 22-second lead.
Conley was powerful through the finish, crossing the line in 1:09:44 for the fifth-fastest time ever in Houston and the second-fastest by a US woman in the race. Brianne Nelson trimmed more than two minutes off her lifetime best to take second place in 1:10:16, and Janet Bawcom was third in 1:10:46.
Organisers for the IAAF
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Thursday, January 8, 2015

Olympic medalist uses finger-tip monitoring device in training

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Monday, November 3, 2014

New York Marathon 2014: Wilson Kipsang Wins Race and World Majors Bonus - NYTimes.com







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    Wilson Kipsang from Kenya shared the podium with the runner-up Lelisa Desisa of Ethiopia, right, and Gebre Gebremariam, who was third, after winning the men's race.Uli Seit for The New York Times
    As Wilson Kipsang of Kenya and Lelisa Desisa of Ethiopia ran stride for stride into the last stretch of the New York City Marathon on Sunday morning, a long run turned into an unusually personal sprint. As Desisa, the younger challenger, tried to surge ahead, his left arm pushed Kipsang’s arm away.
    That turned a windy, tactical race into, well, hand-to-hand combat. And the look on Kipsang’s face said everything. He glared at Desisa. His next move was to dig into his finishing gear and sprint ahead in the final turn of the course in Central Park, a surge that sent him flying through the finish line, seven seconds ahead of Desisa. Only then did his defiance turn into a smile.
    But Kipsang said he had not been motivated by anger.
    “I didn’t see him because he was coming from behind,” Kipsang said. “Then I decided now to sprint because I saw the finish was very close and the speed was very high. So when he gave me more space, then I would sprint.”






    Not only did Kipsang win in his first appearance in the New York City Marathon, in a time of 2 hours 10 minutes 59 seconds, he also captured the World Marathon Majors title with his third major marathon victory in two years.








    SLIDE SHOW|27 Photos

    Racing the Wind

    Racing the Wind

    Benjamin Norman for The New York Times


    Had he finished second, he would not have won that $500,000 bonus — and he acknowledged that had been no small part of his motivation at the end.
    “Yes, of course I was thinking,” he said. “The only chance for me to win the jackpot was to win this race. That’s why I was feeling very strong and I was trying to apply all the tactics to make sure that I win.”
    Desisa, 24, had to settle for a close second, still a remarkable result, in only his fourth career marathon. He won the Boston Marathon last year only about three months after winning the first marathon of his career, in Dubai.
    But he was trying to unseat the 32-year-old Kipsang, who held the world record for a year until it was broken at the Berlin Marathon in September.
    And Sunday, Desisa found himself compromised in the end, he said, because he needed to use the bathroom.
    “I’m not relaxed because of that,” he said, adding that he was “very happy” with second place.
    Desisa’s second-place time was 2:11:06. Gebre Gebremariam of Ethiopia, who won this race in 2010, finished third in 2:12:13. The American Meb Keflezighi, who won in 2009, was fourth in 2:13:18. Geoffrey Mutai of Kenya, who won the last two New York City Marathons, was in the lead pack until the final miles but faded to finish sixth.
    Keflezighi, a popular former champion who broke long droughts among American men with his victories in New York in 2009 and in Boston this year, finished to huge cheers from the crowd.
    “The race was deep, strong, windy and tactical,” he said. “When it is tactical, may the best man or woman win, and he did today.”
    The runners were greeted with a sunny day for the marathon, in contrast to Saturday’s rain and gloom, but it was cold and windy for the entire race. The temperatures poked into the mid-40s, and the winds were about 31 miles per hour at the start but gusted to nearly 50.




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    The contenders formed a large pack for much of the race. It was 17 strong until they crossed the Pulaski Bridge into Queens, when the strongest runners began to push the pace and the pack shrank to 11.
    It stayed just about that size into Manhattan as Keflezighi took turns in the lead with Kipsang, Mutai, Peter Kirui and Lusapho April.
    As the leaders raced into a strong headwind on that long stretch, the pace slowed.
    “I am used to a much faster race from the start,” Kipsang said. “So when it comes to a race like this, you find that it is more tricky. There are no pacemakers; there’s a lot of wind; guys are not ready to take the lead. So you have to exercise patience. If you want to take off, it’s a bit too hard. Everybody was trying to run from behind.”
    It was not until Mile 21 that Kipsang put on a move that stretched the pack, with only Mutai, Gebremariam and Desisa able to hang with him. Keflezighi and Kirui fell off the pace, along with the reigning Olympic champion, Stephen Kiprotich.
    That contending pack dwindled to Kipsang and Desisa as they began their two-man battle in Mile 23. Mutai fell about 10 seconds back at that point, watching a possible third straight title slip from his grasp.
    The end turned into a match race, much as the women’s race had about half an hour earlier.
    As Kipsang and Desisa made the final turn into Central Park, with only the final 0.2 of the 26.2 miles remaining, they showed a contrast in styles. Kipsang ran calmly, with a cool expression. Desisa flailed his arms wider, trying to find an avenue around Kipsang. He tried to pass on the left and then switched tactics and passed to Kipsang’s right. When he pulled even, his left arm swung out and swept against Kipsang’s arm.
    Kipsang sprinted ahead through the final yards, as if answering a final question about his dominance of the past two years.
    “I had to save energy for the closing kick,” Kipsang said. “I was trying to check the distance and the amount of energy that was really left.
    “I was really very sure of that kind of sprint, even if it was 50 meters. I really trusted myself.”
    Kipsang became the first man to win the major marathons in New York, Berlin and London, race officials said.
    Correction: November 2, 2014 

    An earlier version of this article misstated the amount of time between the 2014 Dubai Marathon and the 2014 Boston Maraton. It was about three months, not three weeks.
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