{"id":1425,"date":"2012-02-26T15:26:45","date_gmt":"2012-02-26T21:26:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/marathon\/?p=1425"},"modified":"2012-02-26T15:26:45","modified_gmt":"2012-02-26T21:26:45","slug":"kipyego-takes-tokyo-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/marathon\/news\/kipyego-takes-tokyo-title\/","title":{"rendered":"Kipyego takes Tokyo title"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Michael<\/a>

Michael Kipyego Tokyo Marathon 2012<\/p><\/div>\n

Kenya’s Michael Kipyego tore up the script to win the Tokyo Marathon with former world record holder Haile Gebrselassie left floundering in fourth.<\/p>\n

The former 3000m steeplechase specialist Kipyego clocked a winning time of two hours, seven minutes and 37 seconds for his first marathon victory.<\/p>\n

Gebrselassie broke away from last year’s winner Hailu Mekonnen before the 36-kilometre mark but Kipyego powered past the fading Ethiopian with around four kilometres to go.<\/p>\n

The result leaves Gebrselassie’s Olympic hopes in doubt after three Ethiopians ran below two hours and five minutes in the Dubai Marathon last month.<\/p>\n

Gebrselassie finished in a disappointing time of 2:08:17 after targeting a sub-2:05 run to boost his chances of securing a spot on the Ethiopia team for this year’s London Games.<\/p>\n

“I could run another marathon in two weeks,” Gebrselassie told reporters. “I felt fantastic for the first 30 kilometres but then I had some problems at the end of the race.<\/p>\n

“The last 5km was the worst I’ve ever run,” the Ethiopian, who lost his world record to Kenyan Patrick Makau (2:03:38) five months ago in Berlin, added. Gebrselassie’s previous record stood at 2:03:59.<\/p>\n

Japan’s Arata Fujiwara boosted his chances of making his country’s Olympic squad by finishing runner-up in 2:07:48 after passing Uganda’s Stephen Kiprotich in the final stretch.<\/p>\n

Results:<\/p>\n

Men: 1. Michael Kipkorir Kipyego (KEN) 2hr 07min 37sec; 2. Arata Fujiwara (JPN) 2:07:48; 3. Stephen Kiprotich (UGA) 2:07:50.<\/p>\n

Women: 1. Atsede Habtamu (ETH) 2:25:28; 2. Yeshi Esayias (ETH) 2:26:00; 3. Helena Loshanyang Kirop (KEN) 2:26:02.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kenya’s Michael Kipyego tore up the script to win the Tokyo Marathon with former world record holder Haile Gebrselassie left floundering in fourth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1427,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18,29,1,54],"tags":[91,430,518,613,872],"class_list":["post-1425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-kenya","category-news","category-tokyo","tag-91","tag-haile-gebrselassie","tag-kenya","tag-michael-kipyego","tag-tokyo-marathon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/marathon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/marathon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/marathon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/marathon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/marathon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/marathon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/marathon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/marathon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/marathon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/marathon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}