"Alphonce Felix Simbu snatched gold in the first photo-finish at a major championship marathon edging out Germany's Amanal Petros in a dramatic race to the line to give Tanzania its maiden world title. The photo-finish showed the race was decided by three hundredths of a second as Simbu surged past the diving Petros at the line, closer than the 0.05-second gap between the gold and silver medallists in the men's 100m final the day before."
"The finish was closer than at the 2001 championships in Edmonton, when Ethiopia's Gezahegne Abera beat Kenya's Simon Biwott by a single second. South Africa's Josia Thugwane won the closest Olympic men's marathon by three seconds against South Korea's Lee Bong-ju at the 1996 Atlanta Games. It was a first global title for Simbu, who won bronze in the marathon at the London world championships in 2017 and finished second in the Boston marathon in April."
Alphonce Felix Simbu won Tanzania's first world championship marathon gold after a photo-finish victory over Germany's Amanal Petros, with both timed at 2:09:48 and the margin recorded at three hundredths of a second. Italy's Iliass Aouani took bronze in 2:09.53. The leaders entered Tokyo's National Stadium with Petros briefly ahead before Simbu surged past at the line. The race unfolded with a large leading pack for much of the distance, thinning in morning heat as contenders faded. Ethiopia's Tadese Takele and Deresa Geleta dropped off with under 10km remaining. Simbu's result adds to prior global podium finishes.
Read at www.theguardian.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]