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Okayo wins women's marathon
April 18, 2004 18:40 IST
Twice New York champion Margaret Okayo overhauled Romanian Constantuba Tomescu-Dita shortly after the 30 km mark and held on to win the women's London marathon on Sunday in an unofficial time of two hours 22 minutes 36 seconds.
The tiny 27-year-old Kenyan, who was nicknamed "Cat" as a child because of her size set the early pace, taking over from the designated pacemaker Liz Yelling of Britain soon after the start in Greenwich.
Running in a black woollen hat and black gloves, Okayo quickly stretched her lead to 90 metres ahead of Yelling after only five km of the 42.195 km race.
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Okayo was still well ahead at 10 km but then began to lose her rhythm as she began to feel the impact of the early pace and Tomescu-Dita seized her opportunity to take the lead five km later.
Tomescu-Dita passed the halfway stage of the race near Tower Bridge in 69 minutes 28 seconds then she in turn started to labour and Okayo began to draw closer. Asian champion Sun Yingjie, third fastest woman ever, was in third place two minutes further back.
Okayo, who has already been selected for the Athens Olympics in August, rallied to overtake Tomescue-Dita and eased steadily ahead to finish untroubled in first place.
Russian Lyudmila Petrova made a late run to take second place ahead of Tomescu-Dita.
The race began in cold, wet and windy conditions, although the rain eased during the morning.