Kenya’s Wilson Kipsang may have lost his men's world record in the marathon just a few weeks earlier, but in the TCS New York City Marathon, Sun., Nov. 2, he got $600,000 worth of consolation when he won the race in a close finish in a time of 2:10:59.
He received $100,000 for winning the race and a $500,000 bonus for finishing atop the World Marathon Majors point standings for 2013-2014. Make that large bills, please.
For Kipsang, of course, 2:10:59 is a pedestrian time, pardon the pun, since his now broken world record was 2:03:23, but under the circumstances (chilly temperatures, gusting winds, and a need to play his cards carefully), the slower time was understandable. Moreover, who cares? Hey, the 5’11½”, 137-pound Kipsang just won $600,000 – and is now presumably going to Disneyland (remember that commercial?).
If Kipsang hadn’t won on Sunday, the World Marathon Majors $500,000 bonus would have gone to his countryman Dennis Kimetto, who broke Kipsang’s world record in winning the Berlin Marathon, Sept. 28, in 2:02:57, becoming the first man to break 2:03 for the marathon.
At New York on Sunday, Ethiopia’s Lelisa Desisa received $60,000 for his second-place finish in 2:11:06, and his countryman Gebre Gebremariam, who had won this race in 2010, got $40,000 for finishing third in 2:12:13.
The amazing Meb Keflezighi, who became an American national hero with his victory in the Boston Marathon back in April, as if winning the bronze medal in the 2004 Olympic Marathon wasn’t enough to make him one, finished fourth on Sunday in 2:12:18 – at age 39! He was one of three Americans to finish in the top 10 – the others being Ryan Vail, who was ninth in 2:15:08 and Nick Arciniago, 10th in 2:15:39.
Defending champion Geoffrey Mutai of Kenya, winner of this race in 2011 and 2013, faded towards the end on Sunday and finished sixth in 2:13:44. Had he won, he would have become the first three-time winner of the New York City Marathon since Alberto Salazar accomplished that feat in the early 1980s. Bill Rodgers remains the only male runner to win the New York City Marathon four times.
Sunday’s winning time of 2:10:59 was the slowest since 2003. Geoffrey Mutai holds the course record for the race – the 2:05:06 he ran in 2011.
Sunday in New York, with a veritable fortune on the line for him, it was apparent almost from the outset that Wilson Kipsang had chosen to run a careful, conservative, tactical race; indeed, the weather conditions (the winds gusted up to 20 miles per hour at times) made it almost imperative for him to do so. This was not the type of day for a guy in his position to try to push the pace into the wind!
So it was that from the gun the pace was slow – for a field of this caliber – and the race wound up being run in a decidedly negative-split fashion, as the leaders ran the second half three minutes faster than the first half!
Heading up First Avenue, midway point in the race, Kipsang was gliding along comfortably in the middle of a pack of 10 runners as the venerable Meb Keflezighi was leading with everyone else grouped right around him, the Kenyans Michael Kipyego, Peter Kirui and Geoffrey Mutai closest to him.
That would change in due course as the pace picked up and runners fell out of the lead pack, one by one, until there were only three left at the front -- Kipsang and the two Ethiopians, Desisa and Gebremariam. By 24 miles it was down to two, Kipsang and Desisa, and these two would stay together almost to the every end.
With at least 600,000 reasons to rid himself of his rival over the final miles, Kipsang put in repeated surges to drop Desisa but couldn’t do it. So he changed strategy to conserve energy for a strong finishing kick at the end. That’s the marathon in big-time racing in the modern age – you try to save something for the finishing kick at the end!
Kipsang commented later: “Towards the end I saw Desisa was very close to me and very strong. I saved some energy for that final sprint. I knew in the final 100 meters he couldn’t beat me.”
Kipsang was leading when they entered Central Park, then Desisa took the lead briefly, before Kipsang made his final and ultimate move, a decisive one, which carried him to the finish line for a three-second victory. Three seconds that meant a payday of $600,000!
In that final surge to the line, he seemed under control in his form and in complete command of the race, which may have had a lot to do with the fact that the time he was about to record – in his first New York City Marathon incidentally – was more than seven minutes slower than the 2:03:23 he had run to set the world record. Remember, too, that his world-record performance was hardly a fluke: He has gone under 2:05 for the marathon on five separate occasions!
Kipsang ran four of the last five miles in Sunday’s race in the 4:30s (4:37, 4:35, 4:44, 4:38, 4:33) and he ran the 385 yards from the 26-mile mark to the finish line in 55 seconds, which is 62.5 pace for the 400. Yes, that certainly does qualify as a finishing kick.
Asked after the race if the $500,000 bonus had been on his mind, he replied, “Yes, of course, I was thinking … the only chance for me to win the jackpot was to win this race. That’s why, (since) I was feeling very strong, I was applying all the tactics to make sure that I would win, yeah.”
Kipsang now has a record in the marathon that verges on perfection. After a third-place finish in his marathon debut in Paris in 2010, he’s won eight of the other nine marathons he’s run (the only one he didn’t win was the marathon at the 2012 Olympics in London, where he had to settle for a bronze medal – most people wouldn’t exactly call that settling!). And his last three outings at the marathon distance have been super impressive to say the least – setting the world record in Berlin last year, winning an extremely competitive London Marathon earlier this year in a course record 2:04:29, and now winning in New York.
In addition to winning on Sunday and reaping a financial bonanza that’s enough to retire on, he accomplished another significant milestone in New York by becoming the first runner to win all three marathons -- London, Berlin and New York. The official Twitter posting by the New York City Marathon after the race said, “He wins the TCS New York City Marathon, the World Marathon Majors, and the first London-Berlin-NYC trifecta!”
In the women’s race at the New York City Marathon, Kenya’s Mary Keitany, making her return to the marathon after a two-year absence to have a baby, won the race after a stirring battle with her countrywoman Jemima Sumgong over the final miles as they ran 2:25:07 and 2:25:10 respectively.
These times were somewhat in the neighborhood of the course record for this race set by Margaret Okayo of Kenya in 2003 (2:22:31), but it clearly would not have been realistic to expect that a new course record could be set on a windy day such as this.
Sara Moreira of Portugal, running her first marathon, was third in 2:26:00.
Desiree Davilla Linden was the first American finisher as she ran 2:28:11 in placing fifth.
Two standout American runners in the race, Deena Kastor and Kara Goucher, both former medalists at the world level in distance running, had hoped to break 2:30, but neither had a good day. Kastor, who’s 40 and holds the U.S. women’s marathon and half-marathon records, finished 11th in 2:33:02 and Goucher was 14th in 2:37:03.
Mary Keitany rolled along in the lead pack on Sunday, trying to get as much protection as possible from the wind, for the first 19 miles. Then she asserted herself by taking the lead and pushing the pace over the next three miles until the lead pack at 22 miles had completely disintegrated and there were only two runners at the front – she and Sumgong. The two of them hammered the next four miles together until Sumgong, who at one point seemed to be getting the upper hand as she opened a five-yard lead, fell off the pace only a few hundred meters from the finish. It was a tough, exciting battle in which the three-second margin of victory for Keitany at the end tied the record for the tightest finish ever in this race – Paula Radcliffe edged Susan Chelkemei by the same margin in 2004.
Oddly enough, Keitany’s winning time on Sunday was exactly the same as the winning time last year.
Portugal’s Moreira had a particularly impressive marathon debut in finishing third. A very versatile runner (she has qualified in the past for the World Track & Field Championships in three events -- 5000, 10,000 and steeplechase), her performance in New York, where she ran so courageously, leading at different points for the first 16 miles of the race before giving way when Keitany and Sumgong started pushing the pace, indicates she has an impressive future in the marathon at an age (she’s 29) when her track career seems to be waning
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