By Hishan Welmilla
Kenyan James Tallam with a timing of 2:21:52 won the Colombo Marathon organised by LSR together with the Sri Lanka Athletics Association in Colombo on Sunday morning. Two fellow runners fom Kenya Stephen Mungathia Mugambi (2:21:58) and Peter Keter (2:22:30) won the second and third places respectively while two Sri Lankans S.R.G. Amila Sanath Kumara (2:25:35) and G.K.K.S.T. Gunasekara (2:27:07) followed next.
In the women’s race, it was once again two Kenyans namely Margaret Njuguna with 2:52:54 seconds and Emily Jepkoech (2:53:49) won first two places followed by three Sri Lankans namely M.S.P.M. Perera (2:53:56), M.A.N.K. Fernando (3:02:55) and B.G.L.A. Bogahawatta (3:03:29).
In the veteren’s maratthon K.A. Sunil Premarathna of Sri Lanka with a time of 3:28:58 finished first ahead of his countrymen S.Shelton Senasinghe (3:32:38) and Princely Liyanage (3:51:35) while Frenchman Pascal Belmas was fourth.
Over 350 runners from 44 countries participated in the Colombo Marathon started from opposite the BMICH at 6 a.m. They were joined by Sri Lankan runners who have entered in large numbers to count up to nearly 7000 runners in total. This is the 16th edition of the ever popular LSR Colombo which has always been dominated by the Nigerian athletes.
This marathon that is conducted on similar lines of other leading marathons conducted in cities such as London, New York, Boston, Munich, Singapore or any other city in the world, is conducted by Lanka Sportreizen in collaboration with the Athletic Association of Sri Lanka. The distance for a full marathon is 43.195 kilometres and a half marathon is 21.097 kilometres.
The winners in the Open event for men and women received US$ 2,500 each plus an air ticket from SriLankan Airlines. The first runner-up received $1,500, second runner-up $1000, fourth place $500, fifth place $250, sixth to tenth places $100 each.
Winners in the half marathon (men and women) received $500 each plus an air ticket from SriLankan Airlines. Those who finished second to fifth places received $400, 300, 200 and 100 respectively.
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