By Amy Tennery<\/p>\n
NEW YORK, Nov 1 (Reuters) \u2013 Kenyan Sheila Chepkirui took back her New York City Marathon crown in two hours, 24 minutes and 36 seconds on \u200bSunday, while Sweden\u2019s Andreas\u00a0Almgren (2:06:01) won the men\u2019s race \u200cin his debut over the distance.<\/p>\n
The 2024 champion Chepkirui was running all by herself when she crossed the line, two years after she held off compatriot Hellen Obiri, who finished third, a second slower than \u200cAmerican \u200bJess McClain (2:24:42).<\/p>\n
The half-marathon world champion\u00a0Almgren finished 13 \u2060seconds ahead of Italian \u2060Yemaneberhan Crippa, while Kamohelo Mofolo (2:06:26) of Lesotho was third.<\/p>\n
Defending champion\u00a0Obiri and Chepkirui broke away from the lead pack with about four miles to go and Obiri ran on her \u200bopponent\u2019s heels for much of the final stretch of the course, hoping for more magic after breaking the course \u2060record last year.<\/p>\n
Obiri had appeared all \u2060but assured of second spot on the podium, \u200bbut let the silver medal slip through her fingers in \u200bthe final moments, as McClain came out of nowhere \u200cto sprint past her and cross the line a second faster.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe last mile was really tricky and I had to be patient because I knew Hellen was really strong,\u201d said Chepkirui.\u00a0\u201cI \u2060had to really push up to the finish line.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marathon debutant Almgren looked to be a veteran over the distance as he hung \u2060in with a \u200ccrowded lead pack through the famously demanding \u2060and hilly course.<\/p>\n
He pulled away from the \u200bdefending champion \u200cBenson Kipruto with one mile left and \u200bhad built \u2060such a comfortable lead by the final metres that he jogged across the line, waving his arms as he coaxed more cheers from the crowd.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t ask for a better debut,\u201d said\u00a0Almgren. \u201cI\u2019m about to start crying.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Amy Tennery in New YorkEditing \u200bby Christian Radnedge)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Amy Tennery NEW YORK, Nov 1 (Reuters) \u2013 Kenyan Sheila Chepkirui took back her New York City…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":389893,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,56,63,65,64],"class_list":["post-389892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389892\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/389893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}