Haile Gebrselassie won the real,- Berlin Marathon on Sunday in a display where he set out to revise Paul Tergat’s world record figures.
Gebrselassie was on schedule to revise the figures of 2hr 4min 55sec for much of the race. But he tired in the later stages and wound up coming in with 2hr 5min 56sec. The time was lost in the three miles from 35K to 40K. Running alone at 35K Gebrselassie was ahead of schedule by around 22sec but by the time he passed 40K he was 22sec down and tired. Haile said: “I knew at halfway that the record was within reach
“But after 35K, it became very difficult for me to push. The last 5K really hurt.”
His time was a personal best beating his previous best of 2hr 6min 20sec. Gebrselassie said he was pleased with his time and having refused to get drawn into world record speculation before the race he said he did hope to one day become the world record holder over 26.2M.
Sammy Korir is the second fastest man in history but he had dropped off the pace at 19K before pulling out at 26K with hamstring trouble. The Kenyan pace-makers, Jason Mbote and James Kwambai dropped out at 25 and 28 kilometres respectively leaving Gebrselassie to go solo.
Another illustrious Ethiopian, Gete Wami, won the women’s race. At 19K Salina Kosgei dropped back and it looked to be a win for Wami. Paced by Kenyan, Christopher Kandie, who had helped Paul Radcliffe to her London 2003 World Record, Wami ran to a personal best of 2hr 21min 34sec.
The warm conditions had an effect on Wami won received medical attention for dehydration after finishing.
