{"id":3247,"date":"2019-09-29T10:21:04","date_gmt":"2019-09-29T16:21:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/marathon\/?p=3247"},"modified":"2019-09-29T10:21:04","modified_gmt":"2019-09-29T16:21:04","slug":"bekele-in-sensational-win-at-berlin-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/marathon\/news\/bekele-in-sensational-win-at-berlin-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Bekele in sensational win at Berlin 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Berlin, Germany – Kenenisa Bekele made a sensational return to his best with a 2:01:41 win at the BMW BERLIN-MARATHON, missing the world record by just two seconds. For good measure, the 37-year-old Ethiopian set a national record and the fastest time in the world this year. <\/p>\n

Kenenisa Bekele misses World Record at Berlin Marathon 2019<\/h3>\n

Only his great Kenyan rival Eliud Kipchoge, who ran 2:01:39 here in Berlin last year<\/a>, ranks above him in the world all-time list. Bekele knows all too well what it is like to miss the world record by a narrow margin.<\/p>\n

In 2016, he won in 2:03:03 which was just six seconds outside the then world record. There are also historical precedents for such narrow misses in marathon history: in 1985 the Welshman Steve Jones ran within one second of the world record in Chicago. Behind Kenenisa Bekele, his fellow Ethiopian<\/a>, Birhanu Legese, finished second in 2:02:48 to become the third fastest marathoner in history. Third place went to Sisay Lemma, running a personal best of 2:03:36 to complete the Ethiopian clean sweep. The best German runner was Jens Nerkamp who ran 2:14:54 to finish 37th. In good weather conditions, Ashete Bekere, contributed her share to the Ethiopian celebrations with victory in her best time of 2:20:14, the fifth fastest women\u2019s time of the year. Last year\u2019s winner Gladys Cherono of Kenya dropped out at around 30km while Mare Dibaba of Ethiopia finished second in 2:20:21. Sally Chepyego, a teammate of world record holder Eliud Kipchoge, took third place in 2:21:06.<\/p>\n

Melat Kejeta, Ethiopian-born but since March a German citizen, made a scintillating marathon debut to finish sixth in 2:23:57 and become the second fastest German woman ever in the marathon. For the first time, the BMW BERLIN-MARATHON was the final race in the Abbott World Marathon Majors (AWMM) series. Eliud Kipchoge took the overall title, having won in Berlin last year and London this spring while Brigid Kosgei won the women\u2019s title, thanks to her victories in Chicago and London. A record total of 46,983 runners from 150 countries entered the 46th edition of the BMW BERLIN-MARATHON.<\/p>\n

The Berlin Marathon 2019 Men\u2019s Race<\/strong>
\nThe BMW BERLIN-MARTHON has a habit of producing spectacular men\u2019s races and this was yet another of the highest quality. No-one would have thought beforehand that Eliud Kipchoge\u2019s world record would come under threat. But that was what happened. After going through halfway in 61:05 a thrilling contest developed between three Ethiopians in the second half: Kenenisa Bekele, Birhanu Legese and Sisay Lemma. Shortly after 30km Bekele dropped off the pace and a few kilometres later Legese broke away from Lemma. But then Bekele recovered although he was around 100 metres adrift. First he overtook Lemma then between 37 and 38 kilometres he went past the leader Legese. Kenenisa Bekele ran so fast in this part of the race that breaking the world record came within reach. Ultimately he missed it for the second time in his career by mere seconds. \u201cI knew that I was in top form although my preparation was shorter than I would have hoped. I know I can run faster,\u201d said Kenenisa Bekele, who has three Olympic gold medals on the track in the long distances and is still world record holder for 5 and 10,000m. He added: \u201cI have shown that my career is far from over.\u201d Birhanu Legese in second place was far from disappointed at missing the victory: \u201cI am very happy with my performance and am also very happy for Kenenisa \u2013 he is a great runner.\u201d The best European was the Austrian Peter Herzog who finished 12th with a personal best of 2:10:57, taking him well inside the Olympic qualifying time of 2:11:30.<\/p>\n

The Berlin Marathon 2019 Women\u2019s Race\u00a0<\/strong>
\nIt wasn\u2019t going to be the day for the favourite: Gladys Cherono, who broke the course record last year with 2:18:11, lost contact with the leading group before 20km and dropped out around 30km. While the race wasn\u2019t as fast as expected, the lead was shared for a long time by the Ethiopians Mare Dibaba, Ashete Bekere and Helen Tola as well as the Kenyan Sally Chepyego. The last five kilometres turned into a duel between Ashete Bekere and the Olympic bronze medallist Mare Dibaba. The 31-year-old Bekere proved the stronger and won in a personal best of 2:20:14. \u201cI believe that I can run under 2:20 on this course,\u201d said Bekere who has now won three marathons in succession after Valencia in 2018 and Rotterdam in April this year. By far the best performance by a German woman came from Melat Kejeta. She was bold enough to run in the leading group in the first part of the race and was then able to continue with a 2:22 pace. She only dropped off that pace in the last seven kilometres when she slowed appreciably yet still achieved the fastest marathon debut ever by a German woman. In the all-time list for German women marathoners she moved into second place behind Irina Mikitenko (2:19:19). Uta Pippig won the Boston title in 1994 with 2:21:45 but this time is not valid for record purposes since the Boston course does not comply with the required regulations. Kejeta should now be confident of Olympic Marathon selection for Tokyo next year. In contrast, Anna Hahner, had a disappointing run. Now running for the SCC EVENTS PRO TEAM, she finished in 2:36:34 for 23rd place.<\/p>\n

Berlin Marathon 2019 Results Men:<\/strong><\/p>\n

1. Kenensia Bekele ETH 2:01:41
\n2. Birhanu Legese ETH 2:02:48
\n3. Sisay Lemma ETH 2:03:36
\n4. Jonathan Korir KEN 2:06:45
\n5. Felix Kandie KEN 2:08:07
\n6. Yohanes Gebregergisch ERI 2:08:26
\n7. Guojian Dong CHN 2:08:28
\n8. Bethwel Yegon KEN 2:08:35
\n9. Kenta Murayama JPN 2:08:56
\n10. Abel Kipchumba KEN 2:09:39<\/p>\n

Berlin Marathon 2019 Results Women:<\/strong><\/p>\n

1. Ashete Bekere ETH 2:20:14
\n2. Mare Dibaba ETH 2:20:21
\n3. Sally Chepyego KEN 2:21:06
\n4. Helen Tola ETH 2:21:36
\n5. Sara Hall USA<\/a> 2:22:16
\n6. Melat Kejeta GER 2:23:57
\n7. Sally Kipyego USA 2:25:10
\n8. Haftamnesh Tesfay ETH 2:26:50
\n9. Martina Str\u00e4hl SUI 2:31:24
\n10. Nina Lauwaert BEL 2:31:25<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Berlin, Germany – Kenenisa Bekele made a sensational return to his best with a 2:01:41 win at the BMW BERLIN-MARATHON, missing the world record by just two seconds. For good measure, the 37-year-old Ethiopian set a national record and the fastest time in the world this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3248,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,15,17,18,1],"tags":[99,154,183,343,413,515],"class_list":["post-3247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-berlin","category-ethiopia","category-events","category-featured","category-news","tag-99","tag-ashete-bekere","tag-berlin-marathon","tag-ethiopia","tag-gladys-cherono","tag-kenenisa-bekele"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/marathon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3247","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=3247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/marathon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3247\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/marathon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/marathon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/marathon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/marathon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}