Paula Radcliffe successfully defended her title at the New York City Marathon on Sunday to become the second woman to win the race three times.
Marilson Gomes dos Santos of Brazil won the men’s race for the second time in three years, passing Abderrahim Goumri with about 1.6km to go.
On a cool, windy day, 38,377 runners started the race.
PHOTO: AFP
Unlike Radcliffe’s tight victories in 2004 and last year, the world record holder from Britain pulled away from Ludmila Petrova of Russia during the 36th kilometer to win comfortably in 2 hours, 23 minutes, 56 seconds.
“The last two times it’s been a really close finish at the end,” Radcliffe said. “It was nice to make it a little easier on the husband.”
Finishing behind Radcliffe were a veteran proving she can still keep up with younger runners and a marathon rookie showing she can race with the best in the world.
The 40-year-old Petrova was second in 2:25:43, the oldest woman to finish in the top two since Priscilla Welch of Britain won in 1987 at the age of 42.
Kara Goucher finished third in 2:25:53, becoming the first American to make the podium since 1994.
Gomes won in 2:08:43. Goumri settled for the runner-up spot for the second straight year in 2:09:07, and Daniel Rono of Kenya was third in 2:11:22.
The NYC Marathon was again the site of a stirring comeback for Radcliffe. As in 2004, she rebounded from a disappointing Olympic performance with a victory.
Last year, she won her first marathon since the birth of her daughter less than 10 months earlier.
Radcliffe has won eight of the 10 marathons she has started — all but her two Olympics, when she was thwarted by health problems both times.
“It does make it frustrating because you think, ‘Why can I get it right all the time in New York and I can’t get it right there?’” Radcliffe said. “But sometimes you have to take what life gives you.”
It was an emotional day for Goucher, running in the city where she was born and where her father was killed by a drunk driver just before she turned four.
“I was so excited to run here and sad that it’s over,” she said. “It was awesome.”
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier