Geoffrey ripped apart the field with his impressive 13:01 wind aided 5k at the 15k mark

Kenya’s Geoffrey Kamworor romped away over the final six kilometres to secure his third successive world title over the distance at the World Half Marathon today in Valencia, Spain. A sluggish early pace as the wind started to pick up contributed to Kamworor not breaking the hour and having to be content with a finishing time of 1:00:02 but what will be remembered is the way that the Kenyan threw in a 13:01 split between 15 and 20km to rip apart a very classy field. The first 5km were passed in a relatively leisurely 14:31 with Japan’s Kenta Murayama and Spain’s Ayad Lamdassem being the most prominent faces at the front of a huge pack of almost 70 runners...Down the finishing straight, Geoffrey beaming smile stretched broadly across his face and he started blowing kisses to the crowd. The one-hour mark just eluded Kamworor but no one was going to begrudge him his chance to celebrate what had been a tactically perfect race. Cheroben took the silver medal in 1:00:22, Bahrain’s first individual medal in the history of the championships, as Kifel passed Yimer with 500 metres to go to take the bronze in a personal best of 1:00:31...Canada's Cameron Levins scores a PB with 1:02:15, one second ahead of ageless 42yr old wonder Bernard Lagat!

posted Saturday March 24th