by Alfonz Juck
Geoffrey Kamworor, photo by PhotoRun.net
Jocyline Jepkosgei, photo by PhotoRun.net
Jepkosgei and Kamworor
NEW YORK (USA, Nov 3): On her marathon debut, Kenya’s Joyciline Jepkosgei defeated reigning champion and teammate Mary Keitany in the New York Marathon to take victory in 2:22:38 (71:39/70:59), missing the course record by just seven seconds. Keitany finished second in 2:23:32 with Ethiopia’s Ruti Aga a distant third in 2:25:51. Australia’s Sinead Diver (42) rallied strongly in the second half to finish fifth in 2:26:23 with Desiree Linden (2:26:49) and Kellyn Taylor (2:26:52) finishing sixth and seventh respectively on home soil. In the men’s race, Kenya’s Geoffrey Kamworor covered the last seven kilometres in 20:39 (14:14 between 35-40 kilometres) to regain his title from 2017 in 2:08:13 from teammate Albert Korir (2:08:36) with the little known Ethiopian Girma Bekele, who is based in New York, improving to 2:08:38 to finish third, ahead of his renowned compatriots Tamirat Tola (2:09:20) and Shura Kitata (2:10:39) in fourth and fifth respectively. Reigning champion Lelisa Desisa dropped out just after the 10km mark. Jared Ward was the leading US finisher in sixth in 2:10:45 and Abdi Abdirahman was ninth in a US masters record of 2:11:34.
