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Turkey's Elvan Abeylegesse eased to her third consecutive European Cup 10000m victory in Instanbul, Turkey, with her compatriot Selim Bayrak capturing the Men's title
The Women's World Championship silver medalist over 10000m from Osaka 2007 kicked away from Holland's Lornah Kiplagat over the final laps. Kiplagat winner of the World XCountry title in Kenya 2007 had no response to the speed of the former World Record holder over 5000m. Abeylegesse's winning time was 31:36.33 , the fastest over the distance in 2008.
With this win, .Abeylegesse became the first woman to win the title on three occasions thus moving away from previous double winners Paula Radcliffe of Britain and Fernanda Ribeiro of Portugal. The 25-year-old, Ethiopian born Turk set a national record of 30:21.67 in 2006 and followed this up in 2007 with a commanding winning margin of 35 seconds when recording 31:25.15.
In third place was Kiplagat's cousin, Hilda Kibet, who has also become a Dutch citizen. Kibet recorded a Personal Best of 31:53.72 but failed along with Kiplagat to achieve the Dutch qualifying standard of 31:22 needed for Olympic selection.
Behind the leading trio, Hungarian marathon runner Aniko
Kalovics finished fourth in 32:09.02 ahead of Romanian Alina Gherasim who attempted
to stay with leaders until the 7th kilometre but then faded to fifth in 32:29.52.
Men's winner Beyrak, is the former Ethiopian Girma Legese, cantered away from his opposition to record a winning time of 27:47.75, this season's world leader. Beyrak at 20 years of age has previously won a Youth Championships bronze medal over 3000m in Sherbrooke,
Canada for Ethiopia before declaring for Turkey. Beyrak's time was also a new Turkish record and Olympic qualifier in the
process.
Spaniard Carles Castillejo was a distant second in 28:07.55, 1 second short of his best time set in 2006. The Spaniard set a B qualifier for the Olympics and may still have a chance of being selected for Beijing. Russia's Oleg Kunkov took third in 28:48.55, sufficient to lead
Russia to the men’s team title.
Pre-race favourite Juan Carlos de la Ossa of Spain, was a disappointing fifth in 28:55.58.
The double victory by Turkey is a first in the competitions 12 year history.
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