Nigeria Content Online

Emmanuel
Mutai and Mary Keitany completed a Kenyan double in the London Marathon
on Sunday while moving into fourth place each on the individual
all-time lists.

Mutai broke
compatriot Sammy Wanjiru’s men’s course record in the Olympic
champion’s injury-enforced absence with a time of two hours, four
minutes and 40 seconds.

He was followed to
the finish line on a warm, sunny, spring morning by world women’s
half-marathon champion Keitany, who ran the second half of her race on
her own to clock 2:19:19s.

Keitany, who
finished third in her only previous marathon in New York last year,
holds four of the 12 fastest half-marathon times.

The pair are only
the second Kenyan couple to win the men’s and women’s title on the same
day after Evans Rutto and Margaret Okayo in 2004.

To underline the
East Africans’ dominance of the world’s most prestigious marathon,
Kenyans took five of the six podium positions with Russian Liliya
Shobukhova the only interloper.

Shobukhova, the
defending champion, broke her national record by 10 seconds but her
time of 2:20:15s for second place was almost a minute slower than
Keitany.

Great result

Only world record
holder, Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia and compatriots Duncan Kibet and
James Kwambai are now ahead of Mutai on the men’s all-time list. Mutai
finished second last year behind Ethiopian Tsegaye Kebede, who was
fifth on Sunday, after two fourth-place finishes.

“For me it was a great result,” Mutai told a news conference. “I became the London champion and I ran the fastest time.

“My target was to win one of the big, major marathons. At 30km I saw nobody was moving so I decided to push it hard.”

Keitany is tied in
fourth place on the women’s list with twice London champion, Irina
Mikitenko of Germany and behind Britain’s world record holder Paula
Radcliffe, Kenyan Catherine Ndereba and Japanese Mizuki Noguchi.

“I was confident,”
Keitany said. “The course was flat and the surface was good. I thought
I could run that fast.” Shobukhova added: “I thought I could catch her
but Mary was too fast. She has great speed from the half-marathon.”
Officials said 35,303 runners started the race, including 22,837 men
and 12,466 women.

Britain’s David Weir won the men’s wheelchair race for a record
fifth time, exactly 500 days before the start of the 2012 Paralympics.