Kipsang, Arusei fail to stem Ethiopian tide at Delhi Marathon

By Feverpitch Reporter and IAAF

Wilson Kipsang and Peninah Arusei failed to stem the Ethiopian tide at the lucrative Airtel Delhi Marathon.

Kipsang ran 59:16, a second slower than Ethiopian winner, Deriba Marga, who set a new course record (59:15), with Wilson Chebet (59:34) coming a close third.

In the women’s race, Arusei hit the front early and led through 10km but eventually paled to third (1:08:20). Ethiopian pair, Aselefech Mergia (1:08:17) and Genet Getanah (1:08:18) occupied the top two positions in another sprint battle for the tape.

Over 25,000 runners featured in the event that had a prize pool of $210,000 (Sh15.75m) where both winners took home $25,000 (Sh1.875m) each. In the men’s race, Merga, who famously shared water with Olympic Marathon champion Samuel Wanjiru in Beijing, timed a world season lead equalling 59:15.

Chebet and Kipsang changed leads with Merga for brief spells before the Ethiopian took charge with about 3km to the finish.

As Deriba Merga came through the final kilometre, relentlessly pursued by Kipsang, there looked the possibility of a repeat of the Ethiopian’s Beijing Olympics misfortunes, though that did not happen as the 26-year-old Ethiopian held on. Merga had led much of the time in the Olympics marathon only to go out of the medals bracket towards the end, missing the bronze by a mere 0.21 seconds.

His performance obliterated the 1:00:43 course record ran by Rwanda’s Dieudonne Disi last year. The pace of Sunday’s event scorched Disi, who clocked 1:00:47 for sixth.

Kiplimo Kimutai (1:00:58, seventh), Joseph Maregu (1:01:03, eighth) and early pacesetter, William Chebon (1:01:17, tenth) were the other Kenyans in the top ten.