Peninah Arusei winning another Berlin 25k title (© Victah Sailer)
Berlin, Germanyknown for flat courses and fast times in road races. This was confirmed again today at the 28th edition of the traditional 25 km race.
In Germany’s oldest big city road race Kenyans Samuel Karuku surprisingly took the men’s race in 1:13:49, and Peninah Arusei established a new course record of 1:24:10 in Berlin’s Olympic Stadium.
Arusei outguns Chepchirchir
For the eighth time in a row the men’s and women’s winners came from Kenya. The women’s race saw the expected battle between Arusei, who won the race two years ago, and defending champion Flomena Chepchirchir. The women were guided by Kenyan pacemaker Emmanuel Biwott.
Chepchirchir beat Arusei into second a year ago, but this time it was the other way round. After 21 kilometres Arusei surged ahead and opened a big gap. She finally broke the eight year-old course record set by world-class marathoner Susan Chepkemei (1:24:29). Chepchirchir held on for second with 1:24:55.
“I am happy to have won this race again and to have broken the course record,” said the 29-year-old Arusei, who became the first woman to win the Berlin 25 k and the Half Marathon in the same year. She intends to run the 5000m in the Kenyan Military Championships and then do some road races in the Netherlands.
For much of the race, Karuku on his own
After the pacemaker dropped out after 7.5k, Karuku took the lead running away at an early stage of the race. He was never caught again by his rivals, who were about 50 to 100 metres behind throughout the race.
“The pacemaker was not good enough. I had asked him to go faster before he dropped out,” Karuku said.
While he was running on his own in temperatures of about 20° Celsius, the pack behind him began to break up soon after half way. When Karuku passed the 20km point in 58:30 minutes, leading challenger Patrick Ivuti was 14 seconds back and had just left behind Gilbert Chepkwony. It almost looked as if Ivuti, the Chicago Marathon champion from 2007, could close the gap. But Karuku, who trains with Isaac Macharia (second in the Dubai Marathon) in the Ngong hills near Nairobi, responded well. Ivuti settled for second in 1:14:04 while Chepkwony took third with 1:14:11.
“I had trained well and knew that I would be able to achieve a very good time,” the 28 year-old Karuku said. His 1:13:49 was the third fastest race in the history of the event, which was first started in 1981.
Ivuti had entered the race on short notice after recovering from malaria, which prevented him from running the Boston Marathon.
“I am fine now and apart from the first five kilometres I was running smoothly,” said Ivuti, who will now run the Marathon in San Diego on 1st June. “I am aiming to break my personal best of 2:07:46.”
Combining the two winning times the race has never witnessed such high quality results. Adding all running events there were 8142 entries from 23 nations. About 6000 of them ran the 25km distance through the centre of the city. The race was watched by more than 50,000 spectators along the course.
“This is a superb start for us,” said Race Director Gerhard Janetzky, who is also in charge of the AF Golden League Meeting DKB-ISTAF which will take place on 1st June in the Berlin Olympic Stadium. “Entry figures are up by a big margin compared to a year ago. Additionally we got superb winning times.”
The next edition will be staged on 10 May 2009.
Jörg Wenig for the IAAF
