Kenyan and Ethiopian runners win Boston Marathon

Ethiopia’s Teyba Erkesso took the women’s title, sprinting to the tape to win by three seconds in the third-closest women’s finish in event history.
Cheruiyot was 82 seconds faster than the course record set in 2006 by four-time winner Robert Kipkoech Cheruiyot, who’s not related.
The 2010 champions each earned $150,000 and a golden olive wreath from the city of Marathon, Greece; Cheruiyot gets an extra $25,000 for the course record.
Cheruiyot finished 91 seconds ahead of Tekeste Kebede of Ethiopia, with defending champion Deriba Merga of Ethiopia in third and Americans Ryan Hall and Meb Keflezighi rounding out the top five. It’s the first time two Americans have finished in the top five since ’06; no American has won the men’s race since 1983.
More than 26,000 runners left Hopkinton early Monday with temperatures in the high 40s F (below 10 C) and a headwind of 13 mph (21 kph). The air warmed slightly during the day—good running weather.
“I tried to show my talent,” said Cheruiyot, who gave Kenya its 18th men’s victory in 20 years.
This year, the men’s race was decided in the Newton Hills.
Merga surged ahead at the firehouse that marks the start of Heartbreak Hill, drawing Cheruiyot along with him while the rest of a lead pack of about a dozen fell behind. Among them was Abderrahim Gourmi, who had the fastest personal best in the field, and Keflezighi, the reigning New York City Marathon champion.
The two leaders ran the mile (kilometer and a half) that includes Heartbreak Hill in a split of 4:37.
Merga and Cheruiyot ran shoulder-to-shoulder through parts of Newton and into Brookline. The Kenyan inched ahead at Coolidge Corner with about 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) left and pulled away.
Erkesso opened a lead of more than 90 seconds and held on, grabbing her side as she ran along Beacon Street in the last four miles (6 1/2 kilometers). Russia’s Tatyana Pushkareva smiled and waved at the TV cameras as she closed the gap, but she could not quite catch Erkesso on Boylston Street.
Erkesso won in 2:26:11. Defending champion Salina Kosgei of Kenya was third.
The men’s wheelchair race was also close, with Ernst Van Dyk of South Africa finishing 4 seconds ahead of Krige Schabort of the United States for his all-divisions record ninth Boston win. Van Dyk has won three in a row, and he also won six consecutive years from 2000-06; Jean Driscoll won eight Boston women’s wheelchair races.
Wakako Tsuchida of Japan won her fourth straight women’s wheelchair title.