Munyao outpaces Bekele to win London Marathon
Alexander Mutiso Munyao denied 41-year-old Kenenisa Bekele a first London Marathon victory by pulling away from the Ethiopian great with about three kilometres to go Sunday for his biggest career win.
Mutiso Munyao and Bekele were locked in a twoway fight for the win until the Kenyan made his move as they ran alongside the River Thames, quickly building a six-second gap that only grew as he ran toward the finish in front of Buckingham Palace.
He finished in an unofficial time of 2 hours, 4 minutes and 1 second, with Bekele finishing 14 seconds behind. Emile Cairess of Britain was third, more than two minutes back.
Bekele, the Ethiopian former Olympic 10,000 and 5,000-metre champion, was also the runner-up in London in 2017 but has never won the race.
Earlier, Olympic champion Peres Jepchirchir of Kenya pulled away late to win the women’s race and cement her status as the favourite to defend her gold in Paris.
Ryan Garcia knocked Devin Haney down three times and handed the WBC super lightweight champion his first loss, winning the fight by majority decision Saturday night but not the title because he was over the weight limit.
Garcia’s odd behaviour in public and on social media throughout the buildup led to questions about how serious he was about this fight at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center. It sure seemed as though he didn’t devote enough time for training when he was more than three pounds above the 140-pound limit on Friday.
But the speed and power in his hands was too much for Haney, who was hurt right from the opening round and went down in the seventh, 10th and 11th.
Garcia (25-1, 20 KOS) won by scores of 115-109 and 114110 on two of the judges’ cards, while the third had it 112-112.
The Associated Press scored it 114-110 for Garcia.
The 25-year-olds from California split six fights as amateurs, but Haney had the stronger pro career, winning the undisputed lightweight title and then moving up to win the WBC belt in his first fight at 140 pounds.
Garcia couldn’t take that, but he took Haney’s perfect record. Haney fell to 31-1.
Haney had seemingly taken his place among the best fighters in the world, while it became easy to wonder if Garcia was overhyped. Garcia was stopped by Gervonta Davis last year in his biggest fight and expectations were he was going down again, even as he insisted he was ready to fight despite the appearance that he spent more time on the internet than in the gym.
His performance proved that.
He wobbled Haney with a big left hook in the opening round, and though Haney steadied himself and appeared to winning the middle rounds, Garcia’s power showed up again in the seventh.
A straight left set up the first knock-down and Haney struggled to regain his balance the rest of the round. He went down twice more in the round, but neither was ruled a knock-down by the referee, who also took a point from Garcia in the round for hitting on the break.
No matter. There was no denying the knock-downs in the 10th and 11th, and Garcia was able to spend most of the 12th round taunting the champion.
It had been unclear from the start how enthused Garcia was for the fight, which he was lobbying to be held in Las Vegas, even after it had already been announced for Brooklyn.
It became a non-title bout on Friday when Garcia weighed in at 143.2 pounds, 3.2 pounds above the super lightweight limit. He didn’t seem bothered, firing off social media posts saying the extra weight would make him stronger, then drinking what appeared to be a bottle of beer on the scale during the ceremonial public weighin later in the afternoon.
But he looked like the fast-rising sensation of earlier in his career, the crowd chanting his name as he began to dominate the latter rounds.
Dave Mccarty, a member of the Boston Red Sox championship team in 2004 who played with seven MLB teams in an 11-year career, has died. He was 54.
The Red Sox announced Mccarty’s death in a statement, saying the former first baseman and outfielder died Friday after suffering a cardiac event in Oakland, Calif.
Mccarty was in Boston earlier this month and was at Fenway Park as part of the club’s 20-year celebration of the 2004 championship team that claimed the World Series for the first time since 1918.
Mccarty played his last three seasons in the majors with the Red Sox from 2003-05. In 118 games with Boston, he hit .286, with five home runs. He appeared in 89 games in Boston’s title-winning season, with 25 starts at first base and six in the outfield, in addition to three pitching appearances.
Mccarty batted .242 with 362 hits, 36 home runs and 175 RBIS in 630 big league games.