Unknown Hurisa wins with course record Winner Srinu misses mark; Sudha completes hat-trick
Ethiopian runner, taking part with borrowed shoes, clocks 2:08.09 to triumph
MUMBAI: He was not a pre-race favourite; for it was his first appearance at any full marathon. He ‘mislaid’ his shoes while travelling from home in Addis Ababa to Mumbai, and was participating with a borrowed set. But at the end, Ethiopia’s Derara Hurisa could not have asked for a better script to clinch the gold medal and overall $60,000 in winnings in Mumbai Marathon.
Remaining with the leading pack in the men’s elite group, Hurisa, wearing much-debated Vaporfly shoes despite being backed by a rival brand, ran neck-and-neck until the closing stages of the race on Sunday morning to put in a final thrust, and beat compatriots Ayele Abshero and Birhanu Teshome to clinch the gold medal with a course record to boot.
In fact, each of the three athletes, running with the Vaporfly, reset course records at Mumbai Marathon. Hurisa pipped Abshero by only 11 seconds, finishing in 2:08.09—the new course record—whereas Abshero clocked 2:08.20. Teshome was not too far behind at 2:08.26. The previous course record was of 2:08.35, held by Gideon Kipketer from Kenya.
“I mislaid my shoes while travelling from Addis Ababa to Mumbai earlier in the week so I borrowed some shoes from my friend Abraham Girma (also a competitor in the race) so I only tried them on for the first time yesterday (Saturday),” said Hurisa on Sunday, who had so far competed only in crosscountry and half marathons in his career. The Vaporfly sh from Nike ha sparked a debate i the world of ath letics since the shoe is said to benefit the athletes reportedly up to four per cent in their runs. The shoe is patronised by Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge, who became the only man ever to run a sub-two-four marathon at a challenge event in Austria last year. The shoe is said to have thick soles and carbon plates that together act like springs for a runner.
Even though each of the top three racers clocked under the previous course record, it was only Hurisa who was awarded the additional $15,000 for resetting the mark. He won $45,000 as the gold-medal winner.
While last year’s silver medal winner Shumet Akalnew finished 12th, the promising Abera Kuma, who has clocked 2:05.50 in past, once again had to settle with seventh-place finish with 2:09.15.
The Ethiopian runner is said to have been bogged down by a couple of injuries, which prevented him from being at his best once again. Unlike last year when Cosmas Lagat had taken a decisive lead at 30-km mark, it was only in the last couple of kilometres that Hurisa pumped in more to edge ahead.
BERISO CRUISES Amount (approx ~42.5 lakh) Derara Hurisa will take home ($45,000 for winning the marathon and $15,000 for the course record)
However, there was no such drama in the women’s section, as the key challenger in Ethiopia’s Amane Beriso (2:24.51) stormed to a comfortable win with Kenya’s Rodan Jepkorir (2:27.17) comfortably behind. Ethiopia’s Haven Hailu came third at 2:28.56.
Interestingly, Hailu was the only one among the women’s top three to have ran with the Vaporfly shoes.
Beriso had come to Mumbai riding largely on her debut in Dubai, clocking 2:20.48 in 2016, and on Sunday, she too had an opportunity to break the women’s course record.
“I was nervous to start with because I had spent so long without racing but I started to feeling confident at about 31kms and I was certain I could win from about 36kms,” she said.
“With a kilometre to go, my pacemaker Sylvester Kiptoo was pointing at his watch and was telling me I could still get the course record but I was tired. I tried but couldn’t do it,” added Beriso, who fell 18 seconds short of the course record. At the 30km-mark, Beriso was behind Jepkorir and defending champion Worknesh Alemu was slowing down—to eventually drop out of the race. This was when Beriso launched herself to take the lead and finished with more than a two-minutes margin.
Both the defending champions—lagat (men’s) and Alemu (women’s)—suffered injuries and bowed out, with the former limping off due to a flare-up of a calf injury, that had kept him away from action since his win in Mumbai last year at around the 14km-mark.
Sunday’s Mumbai Marathon unfortunately saw the death of one runner and multiple other hospital admissions for conditions like heart attack and heat stroke. There is panic in the running fraternity and their families across the country.
One pleasant morning in Bengaluru in May 2008, a lean man in his mid 30s collapsed at around the 4 km mark of a 10 km race. He was immediately picked by a critical care ambulance manned by trained emergency medicine doctors. He was found to have no pulse. He was rushed to the hospital, which was a couple of kilometres away.
The ambulance had to take a detour because race marshals on the course wouldn’t allow it to take the shortest route. Crucial minutes were ticking away.
MUMBAI: Srinu Bugatha cruised past the finish line at 42km more than five minutes before his nearest competitor at 2:18.44. The army-man also wiped off more than five minutes from his previous best full marathon timing of 2:23.56 set in 2018. And yet, the 27-year-old was an unsatisfied man despite comfortably winning the Mumbai Marathon among the Indian elite athletes.
Running with two special foreign pacesetters, Bugatha had aimed to finish within the 2 hour 15 minutes target. And he seemed on his way towards that at the 30km mark, after which the pacesetters broke away. Running the final leg without pacesetters or his rivals, Bugatha could not keep up the speed.
“I am not that happy with my timing, although it is my personal best. I had come here aiming for 2:15, and I thought I was on course till 30km. Had the pacesetters been with me throughout the race, I am sure I would have run within that time,” Bugatha said. The Andhra Pradesh man ran the first three blocks of 10km each in the range of 32 minutes, whereas the 30-40km stretch took a little over 34 minutes, thereby pushing back his final timings by at least a couple of minutes. But this race has given Bugatha—primarily a half marathon and 25km runner—confidence of running more full marathons and pulling his timings further down.
“My lack of experience of running full marathons showed towards the end. But if I can run 2:18 in Mumbai, I can surely target 2:14-15 in the other marathons soon,” Bugatha said.
In second spot was another army-man Sher Singh, who was participating in the Mumbai Marathon for the first time and finished with 2:24.00. Three seconds behind him was Nepal’s Durga Bahadur Budha, who is part of the Gorkha regiment of the Indian army.
The women’s elite run panned out as expected, with the veteran Sudha Singh bagging a hat-trick of Mumbai Marathon titles with a timing of 2:45.30, way below her previous edition’s course record of 2:34.56. Maharashtra’s Jyoti Gawate and West Bengal’s Shyamali Singh finished in second and third place at 2:49.14 and 2:58.44, respectively.
Two-time Olympian Sudha, who was coming off a two-month lay-off after suffering an injury in September last year, said her goal of testing her fitness and endurance in this marathon was met.
The 33-year-old added that she was confident of making the 2020 Tokyo Olympics qualifying mark of 2:29.30 at the Seoul Marathon scheduled in March.
“Last year, I ran 2:34 in Mumbai without much training. This year, I will go to Seoul well prepared and this run has only given me more belief,” Sudha said.
PARUL SHATTERS 21KM COURSE RECORD
Meanwhile, Parul Chaudhary shattered the course record that had lasted for more than a decade, on her way to winning the women’s half marathon.
Meerut girl Parul, who works for the Indian Railways, finished the 21km race with a timing of 1:15.37, wiping away an entire minute off the course record of 1:16.37 set by Kavita Raut in 2008.
Parul, who had won bronze in 5000m at the Asian Athletics Championships last year, has been training at the national camp in Patiala and hopes to qualify for the Olympics in either 3000m steeplechase or 5000m.
Nashik girls Arati Patil and Monika Athare ended second and third with a timing of 1:18.03 and 1:18.33, respectively. The podium finish was sweeter for the 27-year-old Monika after she lost the entire last year due to a career-threatening knee injury.
“Most doctors advised me to quit running and go for surgery. At times I thought that my career was over. But my family backed me and I decided against surgery and worked on my conditioning for a year,” Monika said. Among the men, Nepal’s Tirtha Pun, also part of the Gorkha regiment, won gold with a timing of 1:05.39. Man Singh was second with 1:06.06, while Balliapa AB finished third at 1:07.11.