Kenya’s Lydia Cheromei and Matthew Kisorio settled for silver and bronze respectively as Ethiopia’s Leul Gebrselassie and Ashete Dido took the titles at the Valencia marathon on Sunday.
Cheromei, who held a commanding lead for the better part of the race, got off to a fast start as she went through the 10km split in 33:21 to slice 41 seconds off the previous record. The 41-year-old, paced by 2017 Trieste marathon winner Simon Kipngetich, clocked 1:09:32 at the halfway point to cement her lead over Ethiopian quintet of eventual winner Dido, Tinbit Weldegebril, last year’s winner Aberu Mekuria, Hiwot Gebrekidan and Meseret Dekebo.
At the 30km checkpoint, it became a two-horse race as Dido’s counterparts fell off the pace. Shortly after the gap between race leader Cheromei and Dido reduced to 20 seconds, the inevitable happened at the 37km mark as the Ethiopian kicked off the afterburners to go past the visibly fatigued Kenyan veteran.
Dido clocked 2:21:24 to improve on her previous best (2:23:27) in Paris earlier this year by over two minutes and well under the previous course record of 2:24:48 while Cheromei clocked 2:22:10, her second fastest performance. Ethiopia’s Weldegebril completed a classy podium in 2:23:37, her career best.
In the men’s race, Kisorio who served a two-year doping ban in 2012, finished the race in 2:04:53. Running in ideal weather conditions, the runners belted out from the start in quick fashion. At the 5 and 10km marks, the leading group assisted by five pacemakers, clocked 14:48 and 29:47 respectively.
The 25km point was reached in 1:14:13 before the pacesetters dropped out shortly after. At 33km, Kisorio was comfortably ahead with a 2:50-2:52 per kilometre pace followed by Ethiopia’s Gebrselassie and surprise package Bahrain’s El Abbassi.
The 35km point was reached in 1:43:39 by the leading trio while Ethiopia’s Tsegaye Kebede and the Kenyan duo of Kitwara and Norbert Kigen who were 15 seconds behind rounded off the top six.
With 5km remaining El Abbassi lost ground and the race became a fierce fight between Kisorio and Gebrselassie with the long-legged Kenyan setting the pace with the Ethiopian tucked behind.
The decisive moment took place with exactly 2km remaining when Gebrselassie moved to the front and quickly opened a winning gap on Kisorio. While the Ethiopian flew to the finish line to romp home in 2:04:30, a fading Kisorio was overtaken by El Abbassi in the 41st kilometre. The winner came 28 seconds shy of his personal best set on his debut last January while El Abbassi destroyed his career best to 2:04:43, a new Asian record.