Moses Mosop cruises to victory in Chicago

Moses Mosop of Kenya cruised to victory in the 34th Chicago Marathon on Sunday, surging away from an elite field with seven miles to go and setting a course record of two hours five minutes and 37 seconds.

Liliya Shobukhova of Russia won the women's competition for the third straight year in two hours eighteen minutes and 20 seconds, beating the second place women's finisher by nearly four minutes. Both winners' times were unofficial.

Mosop, who had the second fastest marathon time on record in losing the Boston Marathon by 4 seconds earlier this year, quickly countered a breakaway by countryman Wesley Korir after the 19 mile mark and never looked back in breaking the course record set two years ago.

Korir finished 38 seconds behind Mosop in second place. Bernard Kipyego of Kenya was third.

In a post-race interview, Mosop said he had been prepared to challenge for a course record, but not the world record because a leg injury had limited his training.

"I'm very happy about my job today," Mosop said in the interview on NBC television, which carried the race.

The Chicago marathon course is considered ideal for record-setting performances when conditions are right. The route cuts through two dozen ethnic neighborhoods between its start and finish in Grant Park adjacent to downtown.

Mosop had the second fastest marathon in history in Boston at 2:03:06, just behind Geoffrey Mutai of Kenya who set the marathon record at 2:03:02.

Partly because Boston is a point-to-point course and there was a strong tailwind, those times were not recognized as world records.

The current world record in the marathon is 2:03:38, set September 25 in Berlin by Kenya's Patrick Makau.

Shobukhova had the second fastest time ever for a woman in the Chicago Marathon behind Paula Radcliffe of Great Britain who set a then-world record of 2:17:18 in 2002.

Ethiopian track star Ejegayehu Dibaba, who was making her marathon debut, ran alongside Shobukhova until about the 15 mile mark before slipping off the pace. Dibaba finished second in 2:22:09. Kayoko Fukishi of Japan was third.

Leading up to this year's race, organizers warned the majority of the participants not to push themselves too hard with temperatures forecast to rise to near 80 degrees Fahrenheit (27 C) by afternoon.

Temperatures on the Chicago lakefront were in the mid-60s for the first two hours of the race but were expected to rise at least 10 degrees over the next two hours as the bulk of the runners work their way through the city's neighborhoods.

Some 45,000 runners were registered for the race with more than 100 countries represented. Race organizers expected some 1.7 million spectators to watch along the route.

In 2007, temperatures during the marathon climbed to 90 degrees F (32 C) with high humidity. One runner collapsed and died, some 300 were taken to hospital suffering from heat-related illness and the race was halted early.

Some runners said before the race they would wear black arm bands to protest job cuts at Bank of America, the sponsor of the marathon which received billions of dollars in government bailout money during the financial crisis.

 
Re-produced with permission, Reuters.