In the absence of 10,000m Olympic Champion Xing Huina, Sun Yingjie, sixth in the 10,000m in Athens, was the star athlete attracting big interest from the Chinese press. Before the race Sun revealed that she suffered a minor injury in Athens, but that she had recovered quickly.
Sun also said that because she has still not fully recovered from the serious collarbone fracture suffered last December and because she ran in the World Half Marathon Championships only two weeks ago (which she won), she was only going to treat the Beijing marathon as "a training run".
Nevertheless, Sun came to the race having won the last two editions of this marathon in 2002 (after the disqualification of the original winner Wei Yanan following a positive doping test) and 2003 when she broke the Asian record with 2:19:39 and became only the third woman to go sub 2 hours 20 minutes limit.
Sun started the race cautiously running with the leading pack well beyond the half way. But when she broke away, she really did and the others had no chance.
Sun finished the race in 2:24:11, which gives her the seventh place in the world list this season, for the third consecutive title in Beijing.
Zhou Chunxiu, who fought in the leading pack in the Athens Olympics for more than half of the distance and finished in 33rd place, was second over four and half minutes behind, 2:28:42. Dai Yanyan, the best athlete in the "Ma's Army" today, was third clocking 2:29:58.
"I feel very excited to win the race," Sun said. "I was very disappointed after Athens, but now I will start to prepare for the 2008 (Olympic) Games. To this ends, I will adjust my form and lay a good foundation for the Beijing Olympics. I'm very confident."
Olympic champion too busy to train
Xing Huina, who was supposed to run the Beijing Marathon, was surprised after the Olympics because there was no time to train. The public appearances and interviews prevented normal training for more than three weeks following her Athens gold medal and Xing decided to pass both the Chinese Grand Prix Final and the Beijing Marathon.
Moiben wins men's race
In the men's race the foreign athletes were expected to be in command and they did not disappoint. One of the pre-race favourites, 27-year-old James Moiben, who recorded his first major marathon win in Xiamen, China, in March 2004, added another, this time a bigger win in China.
Moiben bettered his three-year-old personal best of 2:10:44 from Rotterdam 2001, to clock 2:10:42 for the win.
The winner of this year's Belgrade Marathon, Christopher Isegwe (TAN), finished in second place bettering his earlier personal best from Belgrade by almost two minutes, Isegwe's time was 2:10:56. The gap to third runner, Ri Kyong Chol (PRK) was big; the North Korean was third in 2:15:24.
The best Chinese athlete today, Zhang Jingbo, finished in fourth place. Ian Syster (RSA), the Beijing winner from last year, was in the leading pack until 30km, but was not able to repeat his success from 2003.
Top results
Men
1 James Moiben KEN 2:10:42
2 Christopher Isegwe TAN 2:10:56
3 Ri Kyong Chol PRK 2:15:24
Women
1 Sun Yingjie CHN 2:24:11
2 Zhou Chunxiu CHN 2:28:42
3 Dai Yanyan CHN 2:29:58
Mirko Jalava for the IAAF
