Ethiopia’s Lelisa Desisa, wins Boston Marathon; Rita Jeptoo takes women’s race for 2d time

April 15, 2013, BOSTON – Lelisa Desisa of Ethiopia took the title in the 117th edition of the Boston Marathon on Monday, winning a three-way sprint down Boylston Street to finish in 2 hours, 10 minutes, 22 seconds.

In just his second race at the 26.2-mile distance, Desisa finished 5 seconds ahead of Kenya’s Micah Kogo to earn $150,000 and the traditional olive wreath. Gebregziabher Gebremariam of Ethiopia was another second behind him, in third place, with American Jason Hartmann matching his 2012 finish by coming in fourth.

Rita Jeptoo won the women’s race earlier for her second Boston victory. Jeptoo, who also won in 2006, finished in 2:26:25 for her first win in a major race since taking two years off after having a baby.

After a series of close finishes in the women’s race — five consecutive years with 3 or fewer seconds separating the top two — Jeptoo had a relatively comfortable 33-second lead over Meseret Hailu of Ethiopia, with defending champion Sharon Cherop of Kenya another 3 seconds back. American Shalane Flanagan, of nearby Marblehead, was fourth in the women’s division.

This year it was the men’s race with the sprint to the finish.

Desisa was among a group of nine men — all from Kenya or Ethiopia — who broke away from the pack in the first half of the race. There were three remaining when they came out of Kenmore Square with a mile to go.

But Desisa quickly pulled away and widened his distance in the sprint to the tape.

He is the fourth Ethiopian to win the men’s race and the 24th East African to win in the past 26 years. Jeptoo is the third straight Kenyan woman to win and the 15th East African winner in the last 17 years on the women’s side.

Lisa Larsen-Weidenbach, who won in 1985, is the last American champion; 1983 winner Greg Meyer was the last American man to break the tape.

A year after heat approaching 90 degrees sent record numbers of participants in search of medical help, temperatures in the high 40s greeted the field of 24,662 at the start in Hopkinton. It climbed to 54 degrees by the time the winners reached Copley Square in Boston.

Japan’s Hiroyuki Yamamoto was the first winner of the day, cruising to victory in the men’s wheelchair race by 39 seconds over nine-time champion Ernst Van Dyk of South Africa. Tatyana McFadden, a Russian orphan who attends the University of Illinois, won the women’s race.

Race day got started with 26 seconds of silence in honor of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. A little more than 2 hours later, the lead runners will go past the Mile 26 marker, which has been decorated with the Newtown, Conn., seal and dedicated to the memory of those killed there.

The 53 wheelchair competitors left Hopkinton at 9:17 a.m., followed 15 minutes later by the 51 elite women. The men were under way at 10 a.m., followed by three waves that over the next 40 minutes would send the entire field of 27,000 on its way to Copley Square.

Last year’s race came under the hottest sustained temperatures on record. About 2,300 runners took organizers up on the offer to sit that one out and run this year instead.

–Star Tribune