http://abc7ny.com/sports/ghirmay-ghebreslassie-mary-keitany-winners-in-tcs-new-york-city-marathon-/1592484/
SPORTS 6 November 2016
GHIRMAY GHEBRESLASSIE, MARY KEITANY WINNERS IN TCS NEW YORK CITY MARATHON
NEW YORK -- 20-year-old Ghirmay Ghebreslassie of Eritrea won the men's division of the 2016 TCS New York City Marathon Sunday.
Mary Keitany won her third straight women's title to become the first woman to win three consecutive marathons in New York since Grete Waltz's five-year run from 1982 to 1986.
The 34-year-old Kenyan defended her title Sunday in an unofficial time of 2 hours, 24 minutes, 26 seconds, beating countrywoman Joyce Chepkirui by nearly four minutes.
Last year, Keitany pulled away around the 21-mile mark. On Sunday, she began getting a sizable lead at the 15-mile mark as the race crossed the Queensboro Bridge into Manhattan.
Keitany reached Manhattan in less than 90 minutes. As she began running up First Avenue, television commentators referred to her as "The Boss of New York City," and following the 20-mile mark, Keitany led by more than two minutes.
Molly Huddle placed third in her debut after setting an American record at the 10,000 meters in the Rio Olympics.
Some 50,000 people from more than 120 countries - half of them women - are running in the 2016 TCS NYC Marathon.
The elite athletes will be competing for a prize purse totaling $803,000, with potential time bonuses. The men's and women's champions will each receive $100,000. And $25,000 goes to the fastest competitor in a wheelchair.
All eyes were on the two Kenyans who won last year - Keitany, also the 2014 champion, and Stanley Biwott.
Among Americans, Gwen Jorgensen, the triathlon gold medalist at the Rio Olympics in August, will be running her first marathon. Molly Huddle, who set a U.S. record while finishing sixth in the 10,000 meters in Rio, is making her first try at this longer distance.
The star-studded American field also includes Olympians Dathan Ritzenhein and Kim Conley, who is making her marathon debut.
Tatyana McFadden won the New York City Marathon women's wheelchair race, sweeping the four major marathons for the fourth straight year.
The 27-year-old American finished Sunday with an unofficial time of 1 hour, 47 minutes, 43 seconds. She again completed the Grand Slam by winning in London, Boston, Chicago and New York, extending her record streak to 17 straight wins in major marathons.
McFadden, who won six medals at the Rio Paralympics, took the lead for good at the 15-mile mark and comfortably led the rest of the course to win for the fifth time in New York.
Marcel Hug of Switzerland won his second NYC Marathon title in the men's race and his sixth marathon this year. He edged Australia's Kurt Fearnley by a sixth-tenths of a second, repeating their photo finish at last month's Chicago marathon.
Scattered amid the crowded, sweaty runners are eight amateurs in their 60s and 70s - all trailblazers in New York in 1976.
Dick Traum was the first person to complete a marathon with a prosthetic leg, in 7 hours, 24 minutes. Asked to step off ahead of the thousands of others, he was the first person to start the five-borough marathon.
"I ran as if you broke your leg and had a cast, trying to get across the street quickly, hopping-style," says Traum, who has a business Ph.D. and created his own computer app company to help companies maximize resources.
At 75, he'll mount his handcycle Sunday at the start line near the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in the borough of Staten Island. A knee replacement on his natural leg disqualifies him from actually running; one leg must be intact by the rules of the race.
He lost his limb as a young man when a runaway car crashed into him at a New Jersey gas station.
Traum was a member of New York Road Runners, the club led by Fred Lebow, a Romanian-born New Yorker and avid runner whose energy fueled the early efforts to expand and elevate the marathon to a global level. Even after his death, Lebow symbolizes the race, his statue standing near the Central Park finish line.
For the city's first five-borough run, Lebow, George Hirsch and Percy Sutton, Manhattan's borough president, had persuaded Mayor Abe Beame to ban traffic from the route that spanned the whole city. On the sidelines were tens of thousands of spectators - a far cry from the 2 million or so now cheering on runners.
The three men told the mayor that the crime-ridden, nearly bankrupt New York of the mid-1970s "needed the marathon to lift the city's spirits," Hirsch says.
Rodgers and Shorter's payments were legal but defied a regulation of the sport's governing body, now called USA Track & Field, which classified marathoners as unpaid amateurs. Many struggled financially.
New York spurred the worldwide running boom, with ordinary people huffing and puffing their way through big urban marathons that followed in London, Amsterdam, Paris, Tokyo, Shanghai and elsewhere.
The Boston Marathon is the oldest, launched in 1897.
On the first Sunday in November, when exhausted participants finally finish, some collapsing into the arms of loved ones, many take away new friendships while collecting funds for more than 300 charities.
On race day, watch the main event with ESPN's Hannah Storm and John Anderson!
For all the latest marathon coverage leading up the big weekend, visit abc7NY.com/nycmarathon.
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With some information from The Associated Press
Officially: Ghirmay Ghebreslassie takes the win in 2:07:51! At just 20 years old he is the youngest champion in #TCSNYCMarathon history!
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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/06/sports/nyc-marathon-2016.html?_r=0
New York City Marathon: Mary
Keitany Wins Third Straight Title
By THE NEW YORK TIMESUPDATED 6:17 PM ET
At age 34, Mary Keitany of Kenya has won her third straight New York City Marathon — with an extraordinary flourish.
Keitany seemed to decide near the halfway point that no one in the women’s professional field was in her class and ran away from the lead pack. She ran alone for the second half of the race, a highly unusual situation at a major marathon. She could have taken a stroll through the Sheep Meadow in Central Park on her way to the finish and still placed first.
When Keitany crossed the finish line, with a time of 2 hours 24 minutes 26 seconds, no one in the field was even in sight.
Ghirmay Ghebreslassie of Eritrea won the men’s race in 2:07:51. Lucas Rotich of Kenya was second in 2:08:53. Abdi Abdirahman, a Somali-born American distance runner based in Arizona, was third in 2:11:23.
Keitany’s victory was all but wrapped up after a lightning-fast stretch over miles 16, 17 and 18. Her pace for those miles: 5:03, 5:07, 5:08.
Keitany is just the second woman to win three in a row here. Grete Waitz of Norway did it twice, in the 1970s and the 1980s.
Sally Kipyego of Kenya was second on Sunday in 2:28:01. Molly Huddle of the United States, making her marathon debut, finished third in 2:28:13.
Tatyana McFadden of the United States won her fourth consecutive New York City Marathon title, finishing the women’s wheelchair race in 1 hour 47 minutes 43 seconds.
Manuela Schar of Switzerland was second in 1:49:28. Amanda McGrory of the United States was third in 1:53:15.
McFadden was born in Russia, adopted by American parents and grew up in Maryland. She is among the most decorated Paralympic athletes in history. She finished second in a photo finish at the Rio Paralympics in September, narrowly losing to Zou Lihong of China. Zou was in Sunday’s field in New York, but was nowhere close when McFadden crossed the finish line in Central Park.
Some Big Debuts This Year
Some emerging American runners are making their marathon debuts today. The 2016 Olympians Molly Huddle, Kim Conley and Gwen Jorgensen have all used the past two months to graduate from their shorter Olympic distances to 26.2 miles.
Huddle, a New York state native, has had a string of contentious finishes — an arm reach at the NYC Half Marathon this year, a premature celebration at the world championships last year. She’ll try to keep pace with Kenya’s Mary Keitany, who has lost only seven races in the past eight years.
Huddle set the American record in the 10 kilometers at the Rio Olympics this summer and is America’s most promising rising marathon runner. The NYC Marathon now has a special prize purse for Americans, through the fifth finisher. The top American gets $25,000.
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http://theweek.com/5things/659948/mary-keitany-ghirmay-ghebreslassie-win-nyc-marathon
Mary Keitany, Ghirmay Ghebreslassie win NYC Marathon
Kenyan Mary Keitany won her third straight title at the New York City Marathon Sunday, finishing with a time of 2:24:26. She broke away from the rest of the elite women runners halfway through the race — an unusual move — and ran the final 13 miles alone. The men's race was won by Ghirmay Ghebreslassie of Eritrea, who at 20 is the youngest NYC Marathon winner of all time. Ghebreslassie's time was a speedy 2:07:51. The women's wheelchair marathon was won by Tatyana McFadden, her fourth straight victory, and the men's wheelchair race winner was Marcel Hug, his second NYC win. More than 50,000 people from 120 countries are competing in the marathon this year.
Received on Sun Nov 06 2016 - 12:34:00 EST