Brought to you by Edward Ovadia who is in Berlin with official IAAF accreditation covering the championships for Runnerstribe.com

The womens marathon kicked off the last day of competition, with Lisa Weightman the only Aussie lining up. Weightman was running only her third marathon of her life, after a great debut in London last year, and then an admirable run in the Olympics where she placed 33rd.

Runners to look out for included America's favourite Kara Goucher, China's Chunxiu Zhou (bronze medalist in last year's home Olympics), Ethiopian Dire Tune, as well as a stellar team from Ethiopia, Kenya, China and Japan.

The pace was slow early on, with a big pack bunching up at the front. Through 10km, Weightman was a minute back in 43rd, and using the tactic that served our boys so well yesterday, of coming through the field.

Through 15km there as still a massive pack of 25 runners together, which included all the favourites. Weightman was 1:28 back in 41st place, and holding her place well.

German hope Irina Mikitenko wasn't able to compete due to injuries, and Paula Radcliffe, who was running her own race to make it to the start line in one piece after recovering from injury, just missed out, with a half marathon the weekend before taking its toll.

Approaching halfway, the pack was still on, with over 20 women running together, and all passing halfway in 1:13:39, with Weightman 1:33 behind the pace, in 1:15:12, and in 34th place - moving nicely through the field.

At 25km, the pack still has 25 people in it, but Weightman was slowly making her way up, now in 31st place. But at only 1:25 minutes behind the leaders, she was not dropping off at all. In fact she was running faster than the leaders, but just had a bit of ground to make up.

By 30km the pack had trung out a little, but was still dragging 10 people along for the ride. Goucher was slowly dropping, now seven seconds adrift, but still in contact. Nailiya Yulamanova of Russia (Rotterdam marathon winner this year) was still forcing the pace, along with Xiaolin Zhu and Xue Bai of China. Weightman was sitting in 29th, but was now 2:16 behind the leaders, as the women in the front decided to make an honest race of it.

And then it was down to four - Yulamanova, Zhu, Yoshimi Ozaki of Japan, and Aselefech Mergia of Ethiopia - with Goucher, Zhou, and Bai chasing.

As we passed two hours, it was down to three. A Chinese (Zhu), an Ethiopian (Mergia), and Japanese (Ozaki) - and none of the really big names that we had expected - they were all chasing. Goucher 45 seconds behind, and Zhou 20 seconds behind in fifth, behind a dropping Yulamanova. Weightman was 23rd now, 3:45 behind the leaders, and closing fast. There was a big gap to the next runner in front of her, nearly a minute, but if she could bridge that gap then there were another seven runners ready to pounce on.

With two kilometers to go, there were still thee in it. Zhu whips her hat off, and it's game on. The pace is on, and only Zhu and Ozaki go with it, with Mergia dropping immediately. But Zhou was closing very quickly, and making moves to catch Mergia in third. At the same time, Zhu was making a break for it, with one kilometre to go.

And coming under the Brandenburg Gate first was Zhu, in 2:25:15, with Ozaki a close second, and Mergia holding on for third, with Zhou just behind in fourth. All the top four ended up finishing within 30 seconds of each other, in what was a thrilling and tight finish! Weightman finished 18th, a super placing, and a PB to boot, running 2:30:42.

Weightman:"I was just concentrating on exactly what Dick [Telford, Weightman's coach] and the team said to do, I had Susan telling me to concentrate, and she was handing out my drinks, so I had a good team! I pretty much was on track - Dick just said that given the heat, and my PB kind of shape, just to go out in 18 minutes for the first 5km, and I was spot on that, and went through 36:10 [at 10km], and felt pretty comfortable, just make sure I wasn't breathing hard. And then I started running 3:30 mins/km in the second 10km, and felt good then. I had a little bad patch for three of four kilometers in the third lap, around 37km, but then I saw a bunch of girls up ahead, so as I was passing people it made it a lot easier to keep going through."

"I didn't take a big risk today, just because I didn't know how it was going to go with the heat, and I don't have that much experience at this! It was pretty hot, I was taking drinks at every drink stop, and water at every water stop, just to put over my head. It's definitely hotter than Beijing, so I'm happy with the time considering it was a PB in this kind of sun - there wasn't really much shade."

 

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