Bert RosenthalAP
New York (AP) _ A frightened Tegla Loroupe
deftly dodged some unexpected traffic and crushed an outstanding field in winning the New
York Mini Marathon 10K race for the fourth time Saturday.
As the fragile-looking, 40-kilogram (89-pound) Loroupe was running away from her competition in the final 1 1-2 kilometres, she had to sidestep a woman carrying a shopping bag who had meandered onto the course.
Then a ``huge man'' on roller blades, appeared headed straight for the startled Loroupe. It was reminiscent of the 1995 race when a man grabbed her and hit her left leg at about the same place in New York City's famous Central Park and had to be restrained.
This time, there was no contact between Loroupe and the intruder, and the resilient Kenyan went on to win in 31 minutes, 48 seconds, earning dlrs 15,000.
"I had a lot of obstacles today," said Loroupe, also the race winner in 1993, 1996 and 1997. "In the last mile, I came close to someone - I came close to colliding with him. I said, ‘What's going on here?'
"I'm lucky I didn't hit him, it was a little difficult. It's always scary."
Despite the intrusions, Loroupe retained her composure and outclassed her star-studded opposition. Her time, however, was well off the course record of 31:00 set by Norway's Grete Waitz in 1980, as a slow early pace negated a shot at the record: "It was a tactical race," said Loroupe, a crowd favourite in New York who also has won the New York City Marathon twice (in 1994 and '95). "But if I had known that I was going to win, I would have started to move sooner.
"Also, at the beginning, it was a little windy. Once we got into the park, it was OK."
Loroupe made her big break after the sixth kilometre, pulling away from Gete Wami of Ethiopia and Lidia Simon of Romania. From then on, Loroupe kept widening her lead, and her only competition remained the wayward pedestrians.
Wami, the two-time world cross-country champion and the 1996 Olympic bronze medalist at 10,000 metres, finished second at 32:00, one second ahead of Simon.
Simon had beaten Loroupe by 22 seconds at the Osaka Marathon in Japan in January, but was no match for her Saturday. "I did a lot of the work for the first (6 kilometres)," Simon said through a translator. "But when Tegla went, I couldn't go because of a hip injury."
Wami also didn't respond to Loroupe's surge: "I'm not so good on the downhills," she said through an interpreter. "When Tegla made her move, it was too fast for me. I slowed down. I thought I would catch her later."
