Ruth Chepngetich of Kenya celebrates after the women's marathon final at the 2019 IAAF World Athletics Championships in Doha, Qatar, Sept. 28, 2019. (Xinhua/Wang Lili)
World top ranked Ruth Chepngetich lived up to the expectations as the Kenyan overcame sweltering and humid weather conditions to win the gold medal of the women's marathon.
DOHA, Sept. 28 (Xinhua) -- World top ranked Ruth Chepngetich lived up to the expectations as the Kenyan overcame sweltering and humid weather conditions to win the gold medal of the women's marathon, which finished here on Saturday.
Chepngetich's winning mark of two hours, 32 minutes, 43 seconds, turned out to be the slowest one in the 36-year-history of the competition. The previous slowest winning time of the women's marathon event at the World Championships was 2:30:37 set by Kenya's Cathrine Ndereba at the Osaka worlds in 2007.
Defending champion Rose Chelimo of Bahrain trailed 63 seconds to take the silver medal. While Helalia Johannes clocked 2:34:15 to notch the bronze for Namibia.
"It was a tough race, but I have trained for this weather. It was not easy to run in such conditions," Chepngetich said.
Ruth Chepngetich of Kenya celebrates after the women's marathon final at the 2019 IAAF World Athletics Championships in Doha, Qatar, Sept. 28, 2019. (Xinhua/Wang Lili)
The race was started at 23:59 local time with the temperature soaring above 32 degrees and the humidity reaching 73.3 percent. Although the organizers have increased the number of refreshment points along the course in order to minimize the heat-related effects, athletes began to withdraw after 15 kilometers.
A leading group of five runners paced the race to the 15km water station in 50:23. The quintet that also included Kenyan duo Edna Ngeringwony Kiplagat and Visiline Jepkesho remained together for another ten kilometer before Jepkesho became the first to quit the contest for the title.
The in-form Chepngetich, who set a personal best of 2:17:08 from her massive victory at the Dubai Marathon eight month ago, waited for another nine kilometers and pulled away after passing the 34km mark.
Although the 30-year-old Chelimo, gold medalist at the 2014 Asian Games with a career best of 2:24:14, tried to keep up with her pace, there was nothing she could do to stop the rampant Kenyan.
A total of 28 runners out of the 68 who started the race failed to finish. ■
