Olympics champ Ayana bags gold

New Delhi : Ethiopia’s Almaz Ayana, 2016’s female world athlete of the year, clinched the gold medal in the Delhi Half Marathon today as thousands of Delhiites turned up despite concerns about air pollution. Ayana’s compatriot Berhanu Legese won the men’s event.
Ayana, who set the 10,000m world record while winning the gold in the Rio Olympics, clocked one hour, seven minutes and 11 seconds to emerge as the champion in her maiden half marathon. Ethiopians ran away with all the medals as Ababel Yeshaneh and Netsanet Gudeta were second and third in the elite women’s race, clocking 1:07:19 and 1:07:24, respectively, to cover the 21.097km distance. Defending champion Worknesh Degefa was fifth in 1:08:09.
In the men’s elite race, 2015 winner Legese bagged the gold in 59 minutes, 46 seconds, while Ethiopia’s Anadamlak Belihu was second in 59:51. USA’s Leonard Korir was third in 59:52. Reigning world marathon champion Geoffrey Kirui of Kenya finished sixth.
Suriya, Rawat Indian winners
Among the Indian women, L Suriya bagged the gold in a course record (for Indians) of 1:10:31, while veteran long distance runner Sudha Singh and Parul Choudhary were second and third in 1:11:30 and 1:13:09, respectively.
Nitendra Singh Rawat won the Indian men’s race, clocking a new course record time of 1:03:53 in a dramatic photo finish with G Lakshmanan, who also clocked 1:03:53 but got the silver when the timings were broken down to decimal seconds. It was a sprint finish, with Rawat edging out Lakshmanan to the post. In fact, in the tussle for the top position, Lakshmanan fell at the finish and had some bruises on his shoulder. Avinash Sable was third in 1:03:58. The top four men bettered the course record of 1:04:00.