Kenyans Win Six International Marathons

Posted October 17th, 2011 at 2:25 pm (UTC-5)
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For the moment, at least, Kenya is the unchallenged champion of the marathon world after Kenyan runners won six international races over the weekend.

Beginning Saturday, Kenyan men captured marathon titles in the United States, Canada, China, the Netherlands, South Korea and Turkey.

In Canada, Kenneth Mungara won his fourth consecutive Toronto Marathon.

At the Amsterdam Marathon, Wilson Chebet set a course record of 2 hours, 5 minutes and 3 seconds — only 85 seconds off the world record.

Other winners were Francis Kiprop in Beijing, Vincent Kiplagat in Istanbul, Wilson Loyanai in Gyeongju, South Korea, and Stephen Muange in the U.S. city of Baltimore.

Kenya's Patrick Makau recently broke the world marathon record. Makau won last month's Berlin Marathon with a time of two hours, three minutes and 38 seconds.

That broke the previous record by 21 seconds that Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia ran in Berlin three years ago.

Gebrselassie ran against Makau in the German race but dropped out with about 7 kilometers left with what his agent said was a flare-up of exercised-induced asthma.