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Merga, Mergia take honours

Special Correspondent

— Photo: G.P. Sampath Kumar

IN COMPLETE CONTROL: Deriba Merga (left), who won the Sunfeast World 10K event in Bangalore on Sunday.

BANGALORE: Deriba Merga and Aselefach Mergia made it an Ethiopian double in the second edition of the Sunfeast World 10k Bangalore 2009 event.

On a dry and humid Sunday morning, both Merga (sporting the No. 1 on his chest) and Mergia (No. 51, the first amongst women) ran contrasting races but displayed superb sprinting ability to finish ahead of the field.

Merga, looking over his shoulders to gauge his opponents time and again, made every post a winning one after hitting the front nearing the 2km mark.

Switching gears

Though the Ethiopian did ease a bit at the halfway mark on the turn, more to catch his breath than anything else, simply switched gears and surged ahead of three Kenyans at his heels.

While Mark Kiptoo did push the Ethiopian hard, both Bernard Kipyego and Wilson Kipsang faded away from the challenge and finished in that order behind the top two. While Merga timed 28:13.0 seconds, Kiptoo finished in 28:15.0 seconds.

“I am always a front runner and as planned yesterday (Saturday) hit the front early in good time and cruised along thereafter. It was a good race, though a bit hot, and with a good crowd cheering all the way I felt very comfortable,” said last weekend’s Ottawa 10K winner.

The 28-year-old Merga is also the reigning champion of the Delhi half-marathon, with the Houston and Boston marathon titles also to his credit.

Mergia on the other hand ran at the back of the pack for most of the race which was led by Mary Keitany and Peninah Arusei. With Kebede and Hilda Kibet also in the lead group, it looked like anybody’s race.

Keitany, mother of a 11-month-old boy hit the front on the return and even entered the stadium well ahead but could not prevent the long-striding Mergia from bursting into the straight and breasting the tape two strides in front in a time of 32:08.0 seconds.

Sandeep triumphs

In the Indian men’s event, Sandeep Kumar upstaged Kashinath Aswale, last year’s champion, to the finish with barely 0.06 seconds separating the two.

Amongst Indian women, Kavita Raut of Maharashtra sneaked ahead of Olympian Preeja Sreedharan and last year’s winner Preethi Rao to the tape.

In the National Challenge event, wherein each state or unit affiliated to the AFI can send two male and a women runner, Karnataka nosed ahead of Maharashtra and Gujarat with an overall time of one hour 35.58 second to finish first.

The results:

Elite Men 10K: 1. Deriba Merga (Eth) 28:13.0s, 2. Mark Kiptoo (Ken) 28:15.0s, 3. Bernard Kipyago (Ken) 28:24.0s.

Indian men (10km): 1. Sandeep Kumar (Guj) 30:02.0s, 2. Kashinath Aswale (Guj) 30:08.0s, 3. Santosh Kumar (Kar) 30:13.0s.

Elite Women 10K: 1. Aselefach Mergia (Eth) 32:08.0s, 2. Mary Keitany (Ken) 32:09s, 3. Aberu Kebede (Eth) 32:11.0s.

Indian women (10km): 1. Kavita Raut (Mah) 34:32.0s, 2. Preeja Sreedharan (Ker) 34:40.0s, 3. Preethi Rao (Kar) 35:21.0s.

National challenge: 1. Karnataka, 1hr 35:58.0s, 2. Maharashtra 1hr 36:10.0s, 3. Gujarat 1hr 37:45.0s.

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