Earning his country’s first Olympic medal in track and field, the Ugandan Stephen Kiprotich won the Olympic marathon with a time of 2:08:11.
Reuters reports that Kiprotich took the lead with a little more than three miles to go and finished just ahead of his compatriot Wilson Kipsang, who won the 2012 London marathon.
Reuters adds:
“Kipsang made an early break, splitting the field and passing through the halfway stage in 63 minutes 15 seconds. He was gradually reeled in and joined by Kiprotich and Kirui by the 30-km point in a three-man race for the gold.
“The race, past some of London’s most notable landmarks, started and finished in the Mall near Buckingham Palace. It comprised one short and three longer circuits through the heart of the capital.”
A lot of Americans were watching Ryan Hall. But USA Today reports that before the half-way point, Hall along with American Abdi Abdirahman, quit the race.
“I don’t know if it is tendinitis or something up high in the connection,” Hall told USA Today. “But it was nothing that was that serious in training. We’ve been doing a lot of work on it to keep it clean, but it is just something that got progressively tighter as the race was going on. I felt like I was really favoring my stride and didn’t want to get injured. I’ve never DNF’d a race before, so this is a first for me. Not finishing a race is not an option unless I think I’m going to do serious damage to my career.”
Hall, arguably the best American marathoner, made news before the Olympics, because he gave up his coach and went to a system of “faith-based coaching.”
“My coach is God,” he said in an interview with CNN.
The AP reports that today was a very warm day that kept the Kenyans, who were expected to do very well, off the medal podium.
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