Kenyan makes smashing debut, nearly sets record
NEW YORK — Joyciline Jepkosgei arrived in New York with a modest goal for her first marathon ever.
“My focus was to finish the race,” she said, a gold medal hanging around her neck.
Not bad for a novice. Jepkosgei upset fourtime champion Mary Keitany to win the New York City Marathon on Sunday with a historic debut seven seconds off the course record.
Geoffrey Kamworor of Kenya won the men’s event for the second time in three years. He pounced when defending champion Lelisa Desisa dropped out after seven miles following a grueling victory at the sweltering world championships last month.
After pulling away from Kenyan countrymate Keitany with about three miles left, Jepkosgei crossed the finish in Central Park in 2 hours, 22 minutes and 38 seconds, the second-best run in course history.
“I didn’t actually know that I can win,” she said. “But I was trying my best to do it and to make it and to finish strong.”
The 25-year-old Jepkosgei holds the world record in the half-marathon, but had never run a 26.2-mile race before. She looked pained climbing the final hill, but strode confidently over the finish line.
It was too much for
Keitany, a 37-year-old who collapsed after finishing 53 seconds later. She had won four of the previous five NYC Marathons.
“Sometimes a race is a race,” Keitany said. “Anything can happen.”
Jepkosgei is the youngest New York winner since 25-year-old Margaret Okayo in 2001. She also won the New York City Half-Marathon in March and is the first runner to win both events.
Kamworor made it a Kenyan sweep moments later with a final time of 2:08:13 on the course that traverses through the city’s five boroughs.
He kicked away from countryman Albert Korir in the 24th mile. Korir finished second, and Ethiopian non-elite runner Girma Bekele Gebre was third.
Desisa, who is from Ethiopia, was in 17th place at the seven-mile mark before leaving with pain in one of his hamstrings. He was attempting to defend his title 29 days after winning worlds in Doha, Qatar, in boiling conditions he described this week as “dangerous.” With a temperature of 84 degrees for the midnight start, 18 of 73 men didn’t finish that race.
Sunday’s run started at an ideal 45 degrees.
The 26-year-old Kamworor finished third last year after winning in 2017. He was greeted at the finish line by mentor and training partner Eliud Kipchoge, who completed the first sub-2 hour marathon last month — a feat accomplished under conditions so tightly controlled it didn’t qualify for the record books.