Paul Kosgei wins world half-marathon
Kenyan Paul Kosgei, forced to abandon his favoured 3,000 metres steeplechase event two years ago because of a knee injury, won the world men's half-marathon title on Sunday in his first race over 21.1 kms.
On a tight, winding course, made even more difficult by steady rain which fell on a cold, grey morning, Kosgei won a thrilling sprint finish with Moroccan Jaouad Gharib after the pair had broken from the pack two-thirds through the race.
Ethiopian world 10,000 metres silver medallist Berhane Adere used her track speed to win the women's race, surviving a potentially dangerous brush with a male spectator who had evaded the stewards to run on to the course.
Dressed in a suit and tie, the intruder clashed with Adere as she tried to pass before he ran back into the crowd.
"I was frightened," Adere said. "He jumped in front of me. It was a dangerous situation and I felt like I might fall."
The narrow bends and slippery conditions contributed to another narrow escape from serious injury, this time to local favourite Marleen Renders, twice the Paris marathon champion.
Two motorbikes, carrying cameramen, crashed on a narrow turn early in the race and Renders was forced to jump out of the way. She banged her head against a lamppost and suffered a nasty blow above her left eye. Renders eventually finished eighth.
Kenyan Susan Chepkemei, second for the third time, was one of several athletes to criticise the course. "It's too tight and too narrow," she said.
TWO-MAN EXHIBITION
Kosgei, 24, is a former world junior steeplechase record holder who has also won three consecutive world short course cross-country medals, two events dominated in modern times by Kenya.
"It felt easy all the way," he told reporters. "I didn't know the Moroccan but I was confident about my sprint finish.
"In fact as soon as we broke away I knew I was sure to win the title. The course was difficult but I didn't have problems with that. Today everything went right. Today it was my day."
He said he had no plans to move up to the marathon but would concentrate on the track and the cross country.
After Tanzanian John Yuda, the world cross country long course silver medallist, had made the early place Gharib and Kosgei turned the race into a two-man exhibition.
Gharib edged ahead as the pair entered the Grand-Place for the second and final time and appeared to have the race won but Kosgei summoned extra resources to surge ahead over the final 20 metres and win in 60 minutes 39 seconds.
Gharib, slowing down as he realised the race was lost, was second in 60:42 with Yuda a further 15 seconds behind.
The Moroccan, 10th in the world cross country long course race in Dublin this year, said he had misjudged the finish line.
In the women's event Japan's Mizuki Noguchi led the field through the halfway stage with Adere tucked comfortably in the following pack. As Noguchi faded Latvian Jelena Prokopcuka surged briefly to the fore before Adere made her move over the final kilometres.
After avoiding a potentially serious accident with the encroaching spectator, she moved easily away to win in 69 minutes six seconds, relegating Chepkemei to the silver medal for the third time.
Kenya retained the women's team title and regained the men's from Ethiopia, although their best-known male runner Charles Kamathi was far from happy with his morning's work.
Kamathi, surprise victor over the great Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie in last year's world championships 10,000 metres final, finished ninth on Sunday.
"I'm happy with the team gold medal but my individual performance could have been better," he lamented. "I'm afraid of that hilly race course. I'm frozen too. I prefer the track."
The championships were staged in the northern spring for the first time as an experiment but will revert next year to the autumn in Villamoura, Portugal, venue of the 2000 world cross country.
