Road Trip!
Quite a run at the New York City Marathon for Mary Keitany. Pretty swift debut for Ghirmay Ghebreslassie, too.
Keitany won the race for the third straight time Sunday, pulling away with more than 10 miles to go and breezing home to the finish line in Central Park.
“Alone in the streets,” the 34-year-old Kenyan said.
Except for the cheering fans, of course, who packed the course to root on the record-setting 52,049 runners from 120 nations as they wound through all five of the city’s boroughs.
At 20, Ghebreslassie became the youngest men’s winner in this event. Alberto Salazar (1980) and Tom Fleming (1973) won as 22-year-olds.
Ghebreslassie was the first native of Eritrea to win the New York marathon. He finished his debut in 2:07:51.
“I’m really proud of it,” he said.
Keitany defended her title in 2 hours, 24 minutes, 26 seconds, one second behind her time last year. She beat countrywoman Sally Kipyego by nearly four minutes, and became the first woman to win this race three times in a row since Grete Waitz took five straight from 1982-86.
Molly Huddle of the United States was third in 2:28:13 in her marathon debut.
Keitany crossed the finish line and hugged her two children and her family.
“I was happy for them to be in New York,” she said.
For most of the course, the men’s field was a three-man race between Ghebreslassie, Kenya’s Lucas Rotich and Ethiopia’s Lelisa Desisa.
By mile 20, Ghebreslassie gradually began pulling away. He beat Rotich by 62 seconds and Abdi Abdirahman was third in 2:11:23.
Tatyana McFadden took the women’s wheelchair race, keeping up her long winning streak. The 27-year-old finished in 1:47:43 and swept the London, Boston, Chicago and New York events for the fourth straight year, giving her 17 straight victories overall in major marathons.
McFadden won six medals at the Rio Paralympic Games.
Marcel Hug of Switzerland won for the second year in a row in the men’s wheelchair division. He edged Australia’s Kurt Fearnley by sixth-tenths of a second, repeating their close finish at last month’s Chicago marathon.