Yirdaw Wins Gyeongju International Marathon
Korea - The 2010 Gyeongju International Marathon was run under clear sky where other weather conditions were also quite supportive for the runners. Interestingly, despite of that the race turned out to be rather surprising as most of the pre-favourites of
men’s race dropped out even before the halfway, and at the end of the race there were only three athletes grappling for naming the title while rest of the pack was around 6 minutes back.
The start of the race was quite exciting as most of the runners looked hopeful to make it to the finishing line before two hours and ten minutes standard time. The leading athletes crossed the 5km mark in fifteen minutes and fourteen seconds and paced up
themselves to cover the next five kilometres which were covered in fourteen minutes and fifty seven seconds. Altogether, it took thirty minutes and eleven seconds to cross the ten km mark. The surprising side of the event surfaced when most of the pre-favourites
started to fall back after this point.
Among the athletes having best PB, Jimmy Muindi from Kenya proved to be the fastest for holding the record of crossing the finishing line in two hours, seven minutes and fifty seconds. Jimmy had a considerable lead over his runner up Moldovan Iaroslav Musinschi,
who had PB of crossing the finishing line in two hours eight minutes and thirty two seconds. The third fastest runner was Tesfaye Eticha, the Ethiopian runner who had been thirty seconds behind when the leaders in the race had crossed the ten kilometres mark.
While the race was on, the 15km distance was covered in forty five minutes and twenty six seconds; the leading groups of the athletes crossed the 20km mark in one hour and fourty six seconds. Till that point, the race was well paced according to its target
of crossing finishing line under two hours and ten minutes. However, as soon as half of the distance was over, the pace of the athletes considerably slowed down until they covered the next ten kilometres, which took an additional thirty minutes and fifty one
seconds.
By the time the race reached the 25km mark, there remained a group of seven athletes who was leading the race. The distance between 25 to 30 kilometres did not observe any athlete dropping out of the race.
As the athletes passed 30km mark, the leading athletes started the battle to maintain their dominance in the race. Amid depiction of harder nerves and better stamina, Dejene Yirdaw managed to attain and maintain a nine seconds lead over the rest of group.
Moroccan Abdellah Falil and Kenyan Kipchirchir Kimlay tried to follow the rout but could not manage to keep pace with him. Sammy Kibet, another pre-favourite of the race who had been leading the pack just five kilometres back, instantly dropped back for almost
thirty seconds at that crucial point of time.
After 35km, the race turned out to be rather hard for the athletes as two Kenyan runners Kimutai Kiplomo and Kipkemei Mutai eventually faded and had to drop out the race.
Yirdaw, however managed to keep his nerves and crossed the finishing line with a little margin of eleven seconds culminating in clocking the season’s best time for two hours, nine minutes and thirteen seconds and second best of his career. With the finishing
time of two hours nine minutes and twenty four seconds, 34-years old Falil secured second position in the race. This was Falil’s third international marathon in which he had managed to cut his time by massive three minutes and thirteen seconds from his earlier
best. Kipchirchir Kimlay, the second runner up of the race also made it to the finishing line under two hours and ten minutes. He crossed the finishing line in two hours, nine minutes and forty four seconds. Among the Koreans, who also happened to be the hosts
of the race, Lee Myong-Seun depicted the best performance. He crossed the finishing line in two hours, sixteen minutes and nineteen seconds.
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