Magdaline Chemjor missed the opportunity to become the first athlete in the history of the traditional ‘25 km von Berlin’ to win the race three times in a row. She was denied the hat trick by Caroline Kwambai her compatriot.
The Kenyan won the race in a time of 1:24:50, just twelve seconds ahead of Chemjor. Svetlana Demidenko (RUS) took third behind the two Kenyans in 1:26:22.
It was much more a Kenyan affair in the men’s race. They took the first six places and eleven of the first twelve.
After a race that was more determined by tactics than by speed Jason Mbote won the 23rd edition of Berlin’s 25 k race in 1:15:07. Just two seconds behind Wilfred Kigen crossed the finish line in warm weather with temperatures reaching about 23° Celsius. Peter Kiprotich was third in 1:15:15.
The best non-Kenyan was Rachid Ait Bensalem (MAR) in seventh place (1:16:13), the best non-African Andrey Toptun (UKR), who finished 13th (1:19:53).
5,400 runners from 43 nations took part in the event, which is started in front of the Olympic stadium. Next year when building work in the arena has progressed far enough the finish of the race will return into the stadium. That is when organizers of Berlin’s athletics federation hope to attract much more runners again. By the end of the 80s and the beginning of the 90s the race had already more than 10,000 participants.
“I did not expect to win here, because I had heard about this race before. It is a hard one with good competition and a course that is not easy in the last part because it is slightly uphill. So I am the more happy to have won here – and it is in fact my biggest success so far”, the 25-year-old Jason Mbote said.
“I think I could have run a better time, but the first part of the race was slow.”
Although running slightly downwards during the first five kilometres a big leading group of about a dozen runners reached 10 k in a moderate 29:58 minutes, after they had passed the Brandenburg Gate. After another 10 k, which lead right through Berlin’s city centre with Friedrichstraße, Potsdamer Square and Kurfürstendamm, the 20 k point was reached in 60:04 minutes by a group of six Kenyans.
The slight climb up had tired some of them, but not all. So it was only during the last couple of hundred metres that Jason Mbote managed to get away from Wilfred Kigen by a couple of strides.
It was only last year that Jason Mbote ran his first race outside Kenya. His manager is Pieter Langerhorst, the Dutchman who is the husband of Lornah Kiplagat. So Jason Mbote mainly trains in Iten (Kenya), where Kiplagat and her husband run a training camp.
There have been a number of winners from Kenya in Berlin’s 25 k race in recent years, who were new faces then but later became well known as world class marathon runners: Elijah Lagat won the 25 k in 1995, Kenneth Cheruiyot in 1997 and Rodgers Rop ran the world best in 2001 (1:13:44). But we will have to wait before we know if Jason Mbote could be one of the next big names in the marathon.
“I am not planning to run my first marathon before autumn next year”, Mbote said.
His next race will still be a marathon – but only as a pacemaker when he runs in Vienna. It is just three weeks ago that he did this sort of job in Rotterdam. And when he dropped out after 27 k he had passed the 25 k mark in 1:14:59. So he has already proved that he can run the distance faster. Today in Berlin it was about winning – and he finished this job as well.
It had been Magdaline Chemjor who set the pace in the women’s race, leading Caroline Kwambai and Lenah Cheruiyot through 5 and 10 k (16:15 and 32:42 minutes). “Then I thought I was probably running a too fast. So I slowed a bit”, Chemjor said.
She was well below the course record of 1:24:29 (Susan Chepkemei/1999) at these two points. But aiming for the record she probably went out too fast. After dropping behind the other two in the middle of the race she reached them again a couple of kilometres later. But while Lenah Cheruiyot got muscular problems and was only be able to jog into the finish far behind, Caroline Kwambai did not slow.
“In the end I lacked strength”, Chemjor said. Four weeks ago she had won the Berlin half marathon, this time she was beaten.
“I thought Magdaline would win, because she has more experience. She was strong, and it was not easy to leave her behind on the last kilometre”, Caroline Kwambai said.
The 27-year-old said she had started running at the age of 15 and qualified for Kenyan’s World Junior Cross team at once. If you look back at those results from Aix-les-Bains you can see what sort of potential Kwambai had in 1990: She finished fourth, four seconds behind winner Liu Shixiang (China), and helped winning the team title for Kenya. Just one second ahead of her was Susan Chepkemei in third place. Tegla Loroupe was 16th.
It took her a long time to find back the way to Europe’s races. “In 2000 I ran my first road race in Europe”, Caroline Kwambai said. She has the same manager as Jason Mbote: Pieter Langerhorst. But in contrast to Mbote she does not want to wait much longer before running her debut marathon: “I am thinking of this autumn or next spring. It would be nice to achieve a time of about 2:28 for a start.”
25 km von Berlin:
Men: 1. Mbote KEN 1:15:07, 2. Kigen KEN 1:15:09, 3. Peter Kiprotich KEN 1:15:15, 4. Kenduiywo KEN 1:15:20, 5. Metto KEN 1:15:38, 6. Kasimili KEN 1:15:50, 7. Bensalem MAR 1:16:13, 8. Kibet KEN 1:16:47.
Women: 1. Kwambai KEN 1:24:50, 2. Chemjor KEN 1:25:02, 3. Demidenko RUS 1:26:22, 4. Jerotich KEN 1:34:47, 5. Afoniouchkina RUS 1:36:45, 6. Wolfrom GER 1:37:56.
