World
Best in 10km on the road in New York Mini Marathon
Bob Frank for the IAAF
8 June 2002 - New York -
Another star was born in
New York on Saturday when Asmae Leghzaoui broke Liz McColgan’s 13-year-old unofficial
world 10km best.
The 25-year-old Moroccan may be small in stature but she proved big in heart and ability as she left a classy field trailing in her wake as the New York Mini-marathon celebrated its 30th anniversary in style with a world best of 30:29. A star-studded line-up gathered among the 4,700 runners but was upstaged by Leghzaoui who picked up a $5,000 course record bonus to go with her $10,000 first prize.
Among those behind her were Olympic 10,000m champion Derartu Tulu, Olympic 5000m silver medallist Sonia O’Sullivan and world 5km record-holder Deena Drossin.
New York was the original women’s-only race when Jacqueline Dixon headed a field of 78 runners to win in 37:02 over six miles in 1972, but the quality and quantity have grown somewhat since then. On Saturday Leghzaoui added her name to a list of previous winners that reads like a who’s who of all-time women’s distance greats.
Grete Waitz and Tegla Loroupe have both won no less than five times – New York, of course, being Waitz’s favourite city with nine victories in the marathon – while McColgan, Ingrid Kristiansen, and Paula Radcliffe are among the other victors, and the relatively unknown Leghzaoui joined them with a positive display.
The African 5000m champion had only arrived in the Big Apple on the day before the race after delays in getting her visa approved, but there was plenty of approval for her performance. Race director Allan Steinfeld enthused: “It was another great day in the history of the New York Road Runners Club and another star was born here. New York seems to have an ability to launch athletes into a new stratosphere. It has happened before with the likes of Tegla Loroupe and Grete Waitz, and now Asmae, and let’s hope this performance proves a launchpad for her to go on to even bigger and better things.
Leghzaoui certainly echoed those sentiments as she said: “This was a very big stepping stone for me, and I hope there will be more big stepping stones for me in the future. There were many great runners here today so there was no pressure on me. Nobody expected me to win, although I was always very confident I would run well.”
Making her intentions known from the start, Leghzaoui blasted from the gun and Kenyan Lornah Kiplagat, looking to add to her victory in another quality women’s-only 10km in Glasgow, Scotland, last month, was the only one to go with her. Pre-race, Steinfeld had described the event as like an Olympic 10,000m final such was the quality but they were soon strung out single file as the leading pair a produced a 4:51 opening mile.
Another 4:51 mile followed and by three miles, reached in 14:30 with a 4:48 split, O’Sullivan was 18 seconds adrift in third as she continues her comeback following the birth of her second child, Sophie, in December. Drossin, the pre-race favourite after a superb first half of the year that has seen her take silver in the IAAF World Cross Country championships, set a World best over 5km on the road and American record at 10,000m, was already well back and out of contention.
The rolling nature of the course saw the pace slip to 19:39 at four miles but Leghzaoui was beginning to get away as a 4:48 fifth mile saw her open daylight over Kiplagat and she continued to apply the pressure all the way to the finish. Through six miles in 29:25, she knew she had to tackle the final 0.2 miles inside a minute and 14 seconds and she did so with 10 seconds to spare to better McColgan’s 30:39 mark set in Florida in 1989.
Her performance left Kiplagat stunned, the Dutch-based Kenyan saying: “I came here looking to win and break Paula Radcliffe’s course record (30:47), but while I was inside the record I came up against someone who was that little bit faster.”
O’Sullivan, already a winner on the roads this year when beating Gabriela Szabo at Balmoral in Scotland, took another encouraging step towards peak fitness with third in 31:22. She proved popular with spectators, race officials and journalists alike – especially after daughter Ciara stole the show when grabbing the microphone and delivering a “This is mummy’s day” observation at the pre-race press conference on Friday – and talks are already underway to tempt her back to New York for her first serious marathon in November.
Drossin was another stunned by Leghzaoui’s performance as she said: “I didn’t feel great, it was a blistering start and I found it tough business from the start.” Tulu was further behind, clocking 33:03 in 12th.
Conditions were perfect and Leghzaoui, 10th in the IAAF World Half-marathon Championships last month in 69:46, produced a performance to match as she took 34 seconds off her PB. Previously a pretender on the world stage, placing only 18th in the Olympic 10,000 in Sydney and seventh in last summer’s IAAF World Championships in Edmonton, she now hopes she can follow in the footsteps of former New York victors and become a truly global champion.
Steinfeld concluded: “There are several hills but Asmae showed, just as Paula Radcliffe did last year, that you can run fast times on our course. We feel people should be coming here and after today I’m sure a lot of top athletes will want to be here next year.”
Results
1 A Leghzaoui (MAR) 30:29 World Best
2 L Kiplagat (KEN) 30:44
3 S O’Sullivan (IRL) 31:22
4 O Jevtic (YUG) 31:42
5 T Dibaba (KEN) 31:44
6 D Drossin (USA) 32:08
7 J Rhines (USA) 32:19
8 E Kuma (ETH) 32:22
9 L Petrova (RUS) 32:30
10 A Fernandez (MEX) 32:32
