Tamirat Tola of Ethiopia set a course record to win the New York City Marathon guys’s race on Sunday while Hellen Obiri of Kenya retreated in the last 400 meters to take the ladies’s title.
Tola ended up in 2hr 4min 58sec, topping the 2:05:06 set by Geoffrey Mutai in 2011. Tola retreated from his compatriot Jemal Yimer when the set were heading towards the Bronx at mile 20. By the time he headed back into Manhattan a mile later on he was up by 19sec and chasing after Mutai’s mark.
While the males’s race was successfully chosen before the last couple of miles, the ladies’s race boiled down to the stretch. Obiri, Letesenbet Gidey of Ethiopia and the protecting champ, Sharon Lokedi, took turns in the lead. Obiri, the Boston Marathon winner in April, made a relocation as the trio headed back into Central Park for the last half-mile and completed in 2:27:23. Gidey completed second, 6 seconds behind.
This was an outstanding females’s field that was anticipated to possibly remove the course record of 2:22:31 set by Margaret Okayo in 2003. Unlike in 2015 when the weather condition was unseasonably warm, Sunday’s race was much cooler– perfect conditions for record-breaking times.
Rather the ladies had a tactical race with 11 runners, consisting of Americans Kellyn Taylor and Molly Huddle, in the lead pack for the very first 20 miles. Taylor and Huddle both led the group at points before falling back and completing in 8th and ninth.
When the lead group returned into Manhattan for the last couple of miles, Obiri, Gidey and Lokedi pressed the rate. As the trio went into Central Park they even more distanced themselves from Kenya’s Brigid Kosgei, who completed 4th.
Switzerland controlled the wheelchair races, with Marcel Hug and Catherine Debrunner winning the males’s and ladies’s occasions respectively. Debrunner set a course record of 1:39:32, making herself a $50,000 benefit on her New York City Marathon launching. Hug won the title for a record 6th time.
“I understood it was the hardest marathon and it was my very first time,” Debrunner informed ESPN. “I left much earlier than anticipated and I did the entire race by myself. It implies the world to me. I won the entire marathon series which’s so outrageous. It’s been a fairy tale season.”