by Justin Lagat
This is Justin Lagat’s feature on the Blackmore Sydney Marathon, which happened this morning, Sunday, September 18, 2022, in Sydney, Australia.
The Sydney Running Festival is a candidate race -alongside Cape Town in South Africa and Chengdu in China -to be added to the World Marathon Majors series. The marathon race this weekend (18th September) must have added some good points to its candidature after another well-organized race.
There was a different race at the front of the men’s race among four runners in the last half of the Blackmores Sydney Marathon. At 32km point, Kibet began to stretch the small pack in an attempt to break away, but they held on in a single file just behind him.
Moses Kibet sprints to victory in the @officialbsrf Sydney Marathon in 2:07:03 Australian all comers marathon record. pic.twitter.com/1K8djURPOl
— PossoSports (@PossoSports) September 17, 2022
At 35km, the pack appeared to reduce to two as Kibet and Cosmas Matole Muteti began to appear slightly ahead of Chalu Deso Gelmisa and Abebe Degefa. But the pace slowed down and they were all together again at 36Km.
At 40km, one runner lost ground, and three remained in contention for the win. However, the three kept exchanging the lead into the last 500m, where Kibet produced a more decisive finishing kick to win the race in 2:07:03, just one second ahead of Muteti and six seconds ahead of Gelmisa. The Three finished under the previous Australian all-comers record time of 2:07:50 that Japan’s Yuta Shitara set in 2019.
After a 1-2 finish by Kenyans in the men’s race, Ethiopia’s Tigist Girma Getachew won the women’s marathon in 2:25:10 after leading her compatriot Letebrhan Haylay Gebreslasea who finished closely behind her in 2:25:45, to an Ethiopian 1-2 finish as well. Eritrea’s Nazret Weldu Gebrehiwet finished 3rd in 2:26:14.
Unlike the men’s race which had a smaller pack in the last half of the race, the women’s race had been a bit crowded up to the last few kilometers of the race before Girma initiated the fast pace and started to break away with only Gebreslasea being able to follow her for a while.
🏃 That’s some kind of run! 😲
🇰🇪 🇦🇺 The fastest marathon on Australian soil has been broken today by Kenyan athlete Moses Kibet, clocking a time of 2:07:02 hours at the Sydney Marathon, smashing the record by 48 seconds. 👀
📰 https://t.co/wzVDJ69WOT
📸 @officialbsrf pic.twitter.com/1rJz2yx8Sn— ABC SPORT (@abcsport) September 18, 2022
