Easy Victory For Ethiopian At The Miami Marathon

His margin of victory was five minutes ahead of the second-place finisher.

Tesfaye Alemayehu of Ethiopia came within 35 seconds of the course record at the ING Miami Marathon on Sunday. His time, 2:12:57, was a full five minutes ahead of second-place finisher Benazzouz Slimani. Third place went to last year’s winner, Mike Wardian, who ran 2:23:41.

“I came here to win,” Alemayehu said afterwards. “I ran with the half marathoners. I kept a very good pace. I trained hard.”

Alemayehu snuck past Wardian and Slimani at the start. For most of the race, the pair thought they were competing for first place. “The other guy was so far ahead of us,” Wardian recalled “They were telling me I was third, but I figured it was just someone who didn’t know what they were talking about.”

Meanwhile, Alena Vinitskaya of Belarus won the women’s race in 2:44:39. Vinitskaya, a mother of two, had a rough start and nearly quit the race just four minutes into it. “I was feeling really ill,” she said. “I was having a hard time breathing. But I kept going because my legs felt good. I ran slowly from that point.”

More than 21,000 runners from 79 countries and all 50 U.S. states took part in the race.

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