Abraham Chebii wins the senior men’s 12km race at the Sixth Athletics Kenya Cross Country Series meet in Eldoret (© Elias Makori)
Spectators of the Bavarian town of Würzburg’s traditional 10km road race witnessed a phenomenal display of Kenyan running on Sunday (26).
Runners from East Africa took 19 out of the first 20 places in the men’s race with Abraham Chebii winning the event in 28:08. In the women’s race the first 10 runners came from Kenya with Grace Momanyi the fastest in a quick 31:32.
The Würzburg race has been Germany’s best quality 10km race already in a number of recent years. Altogether 7000 runners took part in the event, including shorter distances.
On the seven-lap-course Abraham Chebii started dominating the race early on. Only after the end of the first lap did a bigger lead group with around ten Kenyans gather at front. At the end of lap two Chebii was in a clear lead and from then on continued to increase the gap. With his winning time of 28:08, he was 26 seconds ahead of Patrick Kimeli (28:34) and David Langat (28:37).
It was a similar story in the women’s race, which was dominated by Grace Momanyi, who had been 10th in the 2007 World Cross Country Championships. After the first lap fellow Kenyans Caroline Cheptonui and Sally Barsosio formed a lead group together with Momanyi but after the second lap Momanyi had an advantage of twelve seconds already. Finishing with a world class 31:32, she was more than a minute ahead of Cheptonui (32:45) and Barsosio (33:36).
Jörg Wenig for the IAAF
