Ethiopians sweep Paris marathon

Ethiopian Abrha Milaw upstaged two-time defending champion Paul Lonyangata to win the Paris Marathon on Sunday.

Milaw clocked 2hr 07min 05sec, with Kenyan rival Lonyangata coming in third as 49,155 runners took to the streets of the French capital in cold, clear conditions.

Gelete Burka produced a spurt of extra gas in the final kilometre to ensure an Ethiopian winner in the women’s race with a time of 2:22:48.

France’s Clemence Calvin, who was cleared to race only on Friday after the last-minute lifting of a temporary ban for evading a doping test in March in Morocco, smashed the French women’s record.

Calvin finished fourth in 2:23:41, bettering by 41sec the previous national record set by Christelle Daunay in 2010. It also bettered by almost 3min her own previous best of 2:26:28, which she set when finishing second in the 2018 European championships in Berlin.

“I stuck with it right to the end, I don’t care what my detractors think.

“There was only a very small minority of malicious people,” Calvin said. /