New Delhi: Rio Olympics marathon champion Eliud Kipchoge lived up to expectations, winning the Airtel Delhi Half Marathon within an hour but failed to break the course record here on a cold Sunday morning.
The 32-year-old Kenyan took 59 minute and 44 seconds to finish the race ahead of Ethiopia’s Yigrem Demelash, who clocked his personal best of 59:48 and compatriot Augustine Choge (60:01).
“I wanted to set a new personal best time. But I was not able to do it today. But still, I am satisfied with my performance. The course here is really flat and the weather conditions early in the morning were perfect for setting a good time. My primary target was to go below 60 minutes and I was able to do that. Yigrem was with me for almost the entire race and that helped me to maintain a good pace,” said Kipchoge, who took a silver in 5,000m race at the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games and this was his second trip to the capital.
In the women’s section, favourite and reigning half marathon world champion Peres Jepchirchir of Kenya came a cropper as Ethiopia’s Worknesh Degefa went on to lift the elite crown with a timing of one hour seven minutes and 42 seconds.
Fellow Ethiopian Ababel Yeshanesh, who was 10 seconds slower than Degefa, came second ahead of Helah Kiprop (1:08:11) of Kenya. Jepchirchir was fifth. Both the men’s and women’s elite winners pocketed $27,000 each.
Earlier, Demelash had an injury scare as he felt pain in his right foot after just five kilometres into the race. Kipchoge, who was running his first race after Rio, was impressive from the word go on a sunny yet cold morning here and kept the lead till the end while his friend and compatriot Choge was hot on his heals.
Choge started to fall behind with around four kilometres to go as Kipchoge and Demelash went neck-and-neck till the closing stage.
Kipchoge increased the pace from around the 19.5 kilometre mark, leaving the Ethiopian trailing in his wake. The Kenyan continued to accelerate from there and went on to secure the win.
Lakshmanam, Monika take top honours
Armyman G. Lakshmanan emerged on top among the Indian men’s elite athletes with a timing of one hour, four minutes and 37 seconds while Mohammad Yunus (1:04:38) and Man Singh (1:04:40) were second and third, respectively.
Monika Athare took the Indian women’s elite section crown with her personal best time of one hour, 15 minutes and 34 seconds while Sanjeevani Jadhav (1:15:35) was second and pre-race favourite and debutant Swati Gadhave (1:17:43) finished third.
