New York – A Brazilian man finished strong Sunday to stun the favored Africans, ending their decade-long hold on the New York City Marathon. A Latvian woman ran away from the field to win her second straight title, and later wondered why no one challenged her.
Marilson Gomes dos Santos of Brazil made a remarkable New York debut, breaking away from the lead pack in the last quarter of the race and holding off an all-star field of challengers to become the first South American to win the race, man or woman. Gomes finished in 2 hours, 9 minutes and 58 seconds.
Women’s defending champion Jelena Prokopcuka sped away early and ran alone at the end, becoming the first woman in more than a decade to win two straight titles in New York. She won in 2:25:05.
In the final mile, as the race headed back into Central Park, Gomes surrendered about half the 30-second margin he had built over the Kenyans. He glanced over his shoulder several times, at one point doing a double-take when he saw a figure right behind him.
But it was a woman runner, who had started a half-hour before the men.
“It wasn’t a surprise, to win a marathon you have to have courage and today I had courage,” Gomes said. “I pushed the pace to get less people in the (lead) group. I kept pushing and they kept staying behind.”
It certainly was a surprise to defending champion Paul Tergat, who said later he didn’t know much about Gomes. He and Kenyan compatriot Stephen Kiogora worked together to push Gomes at the end, but ran out of room. Kiogora was second in 2:10:06, while Tergat was third. Kenyan men also took the fourth, fifth and seventh spots, with Olympic champion Stefano Baldini of Italy in sixth.
It was the first time in 10 years that an African man didn’t win the race.
“Gomes, I did not know exactly who he was. When he decided to break, I think for some reason nobody wanted to move. We waited to see who else was going to move,” Tergat said. “The guy was motivated. To try to close at the last stages, it was too late.”
The top American was Peter Gilmore, who finished 10th in 2:13:13. Former University of Colorado star Dathan Ritzenhein, making his marathon debut, was 11th in 2:14:01. Meb Keflezighi, who was third and second the past two years, finished 21st while battling food poisoning. Former CU star Allen Culpepper dropped out after the 20th mile, according to Richard Finn of New York Road Runners.
The women’s race became little more than a coronation after Prokopcuka made her bold move away from the lead pack, crushing the hopes of Deena Kastor, the world’s top-ranked marathoner, who was favored to become the first American woman to win the race since 1977.
Kastor finished sixth in 2:27:54. Prokopcuka is the first woman to win two straight titles since Kenya’s Tegla Loroupe in ’94-95.
