Sterling performance: Chebii wins his maiden contest in Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon in Madrid

By JOSEPH NGURE

Ezekiel Kiptoo Chebii made his victorious debut in the Rock ‘n’ Roll marathon on Sunday, recording the quickest time ever in the Spanish capital.

The 23-year-old and Iten-based runner won in 2:09.15 while Ethiopia’s Alem Frike missed the course record by 7 seconds, winning the women contest in 2:32.11, her season best this year.

The inclusion of the new young talented marathoner into the race saw the new course record as Chebii carried the 59:05 best time in half marathon to the competition.

“It has been fantastic, a win on my debut, a course record, I can’t ask for more,” commented an elated Chebii after recovering from his huge effort.

“I didn’t know the distance and the circuit. So I preferred to run conservatively for the first half and listened to advice from the organizer on when I could push hard and when to slow down.”

Record pace

 But the race didn’t start on record pace. Eritrea’s Dawit Weldeselasie acted as the early pacemaker but some five kilometres into the race, only Kenya’s Lawrence Kimaiyo remained running at his shoulder while the eventual winner (Chebii) was some metres behind with the rest of the African contenders.

Shortly before the 10km mark, Chebii caught the leading duo and the triumvirate found a quite consistent pace of 3:00 per kilometer, going through halfway in 1:04.08, just ahead of the projected 1:04.30.

It was then that a course record began to be realistic with compatriot Daniel Limo and Ethiopia’s Samuel Gatawech also going through half way in under 1:05.

When Weldeselasie dropped out from the race after the halfway point, Kimaiyo and Chebii exchanged turns in the lead to keep the rhythm alive and heir tactic paid off as the Kenyan pair passed the 30km point in 1:31.12.

The decisive movement came some five kilometres to the end when Kimaiyo couldn’t live with Chebii’s calculated pace as the latter began to open a sizable margin.

Kept momentum

At 40km, they were widely separated by 35 seconds and the champion kept his momentum to the line, almost doubling his advantage.

He took a massive 1:22 improvement from the previous course record set last year and also lowered the Madrid all-comers best that had been held by Italy’s Stefano Baldini at 2:09.59 from the 2001 Millennium Marathon.

Kimaiyo finished second in 2:10:17 while Limo made it an all-Kenyan men’s podium with third place in 2:12.14.

“It has been fantastic, a win on my debut, a course record, I can’t ask for more,” commented an elated Chebii after recovering from his huge effort.

“I didn’t know the distance and the circuit. So I preferred to run conservatively for the first half and listened to advice from the organiser on when I could push hard and when to slow down,” Chebii added.