EUGENE, United States — Ethiopia’s Tamirat Tola produced a decisive kick 8km from the finish
line to win gold in the men’s marathon at the
World Athletics Championships on
Sunday.
اضافة اعلان
Tola, who won
Olympic 10,000m bronze at the 2016 Rio Games and marathon silver at the 2017
London worlds, clocked a championship record of 2hr 5min 37sec, smashing the
previous best of 2:06.54 set by Kenyan Abel Kirui in Berlin in 2009.
“It’s a dream come
true,” Tola said. “I learned from my mistake in 2017 and I made sure it did not
happen again.”
There was an
Ethiopian 1–2 with
Mosinet Geremew taking silver, as he also did in the 2019
worlds in Doha, in 2:06.45.
Belgium’s Bashir
Abdi took bronze a further 4sec adrift.
“I am very happy
to make 1–2 for Ethiopia again,” said Geremew.
“For next year’s
world championships (in Budapest), I just pray to be healthy to make the team
again.”
Tola made his move
at the 34km mark, surging ahead of the six-strong chasing pack and quickly
building up a 7sec lead, and proceeding to increase that.
In cool, perfect
conditions for marathon running, Tola blew away the field, the chasers soon cut
to Abdi and Geremew, with Kenya’s Geoffrey Kamworor and Canadian Cameron Levins
falling off the pace.
The latter pair,
however, reeled the podium seekers back in with 4km to go to set up a battle
royale for the minor medals, but Geremew turned the screw and only Abdi
followed.
Levins eventually
finished fourth and Kamworor in fifth.
It was a
remarkable result for both Levins, in a national record, and the Kenyan.
Kamworor has had
to make a comeback from a potential career-ending accident in June 2020 when he
was hit by a motorbike during a training run that left him requiring surgery on
a broken tibia.
He rebounded to
win the Kenyan Police Cross Country Championships in January 2021 before going
on to secure a place on Kenya’s Olympic 10,000m team after winning the national
trials, only to have to pull out with an ankle injury.
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