Sabrina Yohannes
for the IAAF
16 April 2001 - Boston - Atlanta Olympic silver-medallist Bong-Ju Lee of Korea snapped the 10-year winning streak of Kenyan men at the Boston marathon, but Catherine Ndereba is single-handedly beginning one for the women. Lee won the 105th edition of the race in 2:09:43, and Ndereba successfully defended her title in 2:23:53.
The top three finishers of the close men’s race last year, Kenyans Elijah Lagat and Moses Tanui, and Ethiopian Gezahegne Abera, who hung on the longest this year, fell back after a large lead group, that included 1999 champion Joseph Chebet of Kenya and was initially led by South Africans Makhosonke Fika and Simon Mpholo, dwindled down to five in the course’s hilly stretch.
Kenyans David Kiptum Busienei and Laban Nkete were then also shaken off by Lee, Ecuador’s Silvio Guerra and Kenyan debut marathoner Joshua Chelang’a.
The three ran, at times in single file, at one point three abreast, until Chelang’a, who has run well over shorter distances on the road and cross country fell back, his jutted jaw showing the strain of pushing so hard in his first 26.2 mile effort.
After leading for much of the 1999 race and finishing second, Guerra bided his time to make a strong move, but could not keep up with Lee and took second again, in 2:10:07, 22 seconds ahead of Chelang’a.
Lee ran alone for the last mile and looked back as he approached the finish line. Seeing no-one, he raised his right fist in the air, then both arms, and then alternated waving to the crowd with triumphantly punching the air with his fist all the way to the finish line, where he became the first Korean since Kee Yong Ham in 1950 to win the Boston marathon.
“I’m very happy and it’s a big honor for me,” said Lee, who finished a disappointing 24th in the Sydney Olympics, but second in December’s Fukuoka marathon, giving his confidence a boost for Boston. “When I had two miles left, that was the hardest challenge in the race, but I also felt that if I could go through that point, then I could really win the race,” he said,adding that the Kenyan winning streak and strong presence here did not affect him. “I believe the marathon is principally competing against oneself,” he said.
Two-time former champion Tanui placed 12th, Olympic champion Abera was 16th, and the defending Boston champion Lagat placed 17th. “At the start, after two or three kilometers, I started to feel back pain,” said Lagat.
Poland’s Malgorzata Sobanska was an early leader in the women’s race in a pack that included Kenyan Lornah Kiplagat, Russian Lyubov Morgunova, China’s Wei Yanan and former champions Ndereba and Fatuma Roba of Ethiopia.
Ndereba stuck to the plan that ended the 1996 Olympic champion Roba’s three-win streak in Boston last year: she ran a conservative first half and pushed in the second half of the race and by the 18th mile, only Roba stayed with her. But by “Heartbreak Hill,” where Roba had cemented her previous victories, she couldn’t match the Kenyan’s pace, either, and Ndereba took her second Boston title.
“I wanted to maintain my pace of 5:30 to 5:33 for the first half, and maybe to push it for the second half,” said Ndereba. “I had full confidence in me, and I prayed that God would give me the power to keep going.”
The 1995 London marathon winner Sobanska and 2000 Honolulu champion Morgunova both reeled Roba in, and finished in 2:26:42 and 2:27:18. Roba placed fifth, behind Kiplagat. “I am in good shape, and the weather was good, too,” said Roba. “But I just couldn’t manage.”
After defeating Roba in just her third try at the marathon in Boston last year, Ndereba was one of two athletes considered for the last spot on the Kenyan Olympic team. She didn’t make the team, but felt that after her October win in Chicago in a personal record and world-leading 2:21:33 – within a minute of her more experienced compatriot Tegla Loroupe’s world best -- she had nothing left to prove.
“I think I have proved enough,” she said. “What I am looking for now, is not just to go for the Olympics, but something special, to hold a record, God willing.”
Although tall, young American Josh Cox, with blonde-highlighted hair, elicited screams taking the lead as the men’s race passed the women-only Wellesley College at 20K, Sydney Olympian Rod de Haven was the top U.S. finisher, placing sixth behind Busienei and Mbarek Hussein, brother of the first Kenyan champion in Boston, Ibrahim Hussein. Cox finished 14th. ##
