Kenya’s Irine Jepchumba Kimais and
Roncer Kipkorir Konga were comfortable winners at the Prague Half Marathon on
Saturday (1), winning at the World
Athletics Elite Label road race in 1:06:00 and 59:43 respectively.
Conditions
were generally good, but the runners faced a strong headwind in the closing
stages. Before then, though, the leaders in the women’s race were on for a
swift time, having reached 10km in 31:04.
At that
point, Kimais ran alongside fellow Kenyans Janeth Chepngetich and Nesphine
Jepleting as well as Ethiopian duo Mebratu Tadesse and Zeray Bezabeh.
Kimais pushed the pace over the next five kilometers, covering that section in 15:19, which was enough to drop Chepngetich, the last of her opponents. Her pace slowed slightly in the final few kilometres as the strong winds took their toll, but Kimais held on to win in 1:06:00, the second-fastest time of her career after the 1:04:37 PB she set in Barcelona earlier this year.
“It was
not a bad race and the course was good,” said the 24-year-old. “There were just
some places I had to struggle with. Together with my pacemakers, we were
fighting for the victory, and I am happy for this time.”
Chepngetich
finished second in 1:06:42 and Bezabeh completed the podium in 1:07:15.
In the
men’s race, six men ran alongside the pacemaker as they passed through 10km in
28:03 with Konga near the front of the pack.
Konga then
upped the pace slightly and managed to open up a gap on what had now become the
chase pack, reaching 15km in 41:51 with a nine-second lead. He extended that
over the final few kilometres and, despite taking a wrong turn near the end,
reached the finish a comfortable winner in 59:43.
Uganda’s
Maxwell Rotich was second in 1:00:06, five seconds ahead of Kenya’s Geoffrey
Koech.
"It's
definitely a great result for me, I felt good on the course,” said Konga, who
was just five seconds shy of his PB. “I'm very happy for a time under an hour.
The wrong turn slowed me down, I could have run faster, maybe some five
seconds. The wind was also a problem and slowed me down a little bit.”
Credit: World
athletics.
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