{"id":794166,"date":"2019-03-25T18:40:01","date_gmt":"2019-03-26T00:40:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/news\/barno-of-kenya-merachi-of-ethiopia-win-la-marathon\/"},"modified":"2019-03-25T18:40:01","modified_gmt":"2019-03-26T00:40:01","slug":"barno-of-kenya-merachi-of-ethiopia-win-la-marathon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/barno-of-kenya-merachi-of-ethiopia-win-la-marathon\/","title":{"rendered":"Barno of Kenya, Merachi of Ethiopia win LA Marathon"},"content":{"rendered":"
Elite women competitors run the Los Angeles Marathon on Sunday, March 24, 2019, in Los Angeles. (David Crane\/The Orange County Register via AP)<\/strong>
AP | The Orange County Register<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

SANTA MONICA, Calif. \u2014 John Korir thought he was going to join his brother as a winner of the Los Angeles Marathon. But the Kenyan saw his chances of victory on Sunday pass him by within view of the finish line.<\/p>\n

Elisha Barno of Kenya passed his countryman with 150 meters to go for the closest finish in the race\u2019s 34-year history. Barno \u2014 who won the race for the second time in three years \u2014 crossed the finish line in 2 hours, 11 minutes, 46 seconds and beat Korir by seven seconds.<\/p>\n

Askale Merachi of Ethiopia won the women\u2019s division in 2:24:12, setting a race record.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t an easy race,\u201d said Barno, who finished third last year. \u201cI saw the pace was high late but I held back a little. I decided to push the last couple kilometers.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was a slow pace with a dozen runners in the lead pack until mile 17. It went down to a three-man pack of Barno, Korir and Juan Luis Barrios of Mexico a mile later before Korir broke away. Barno was in third with two miles to go before passing Barrios and catching Korir.<\/p>\n

Korir said he began to falter with a mile to go and had nothing left at the finish.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe race was good, but I didn\u2019t know he was behind me the last mile until he passed me,\u201d Korir said.<\/p>\n

Barrios was third in 2:11:59 and defending champion Weldon Kirui finished fifth (2:13:25). Tyler McCandless of Boulder, Colorado, was the top American finisher, in 11th place at 2:14:57.<\/p>\n

McCandless, who said he was surprised by the slow pace, said the stadium-to-the-sea course served as good preparation for next year\u2019s Olympic marathon trial in Atlanta.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis course is quite similar, which is one of the reasons why I picked to run this race,\u201d McCandless said. \u201cIt is a good simulation with a hilly, challenging course and how the competition might play out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Merachi beat Cynthia Jerop of Kenya by 1:43. She bested the race record, set by Lidiya Grigoryeva of Russia in 2006 (2:25:10) by nearly a minute.<\/p>\n

Merachi and Jerop broke away from the pack at the midway point before Merachi took control over the last six miles.<\/p>\n

It is the first marathon victory for the 32-year old Ethiopian. Her previous best was second at last year\u2019s Duluth Grandma\u2019s Marathon in Minnesota.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe course was wonderful. I practiced well,\u201d said Merachi, who set her personal best by nearly six minutes. \u201cAbout 33 kilometers I figured out it was time to go and win the race.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lucy Karimi of Kenya was third (2:26:16). Lindsey Anderson was the top American, finishing in sixth at 2:34:45.<\/p>\n

It was only the second marathon for Anderson, who competed in the 3,000-meter steeplechase at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The Twin Falls, Idaho, native retired for six years to start a family before returning to competitive running.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a pleasant surprise to come in and finish as the top American,\u201d Anderson said. \u201cI wanted to run conservative at the beginning and respect the course. The second half of the race I just wanted to see if I could keep moving and start picking off people, which I did.\u201d<\/p>\n

The winners received $23,000. Organizers said nearly 24,000 runners competed on the 26.2-mile course, which for the 10th year began at Dodger Stadium and ended near the Santa Monica Pier.<\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Elite women competitors run the Los Angeles Marathon on Sunday, March 24, 2019, in Los Angeles. (David Crane\/The Orange County Register via AP)AP | The Orange County Register SANTA MONICA, Calif. \u2014 John Korir thought he was going to join his brother as a winner of the Los Angeles Marathon. But the Kenyan saw his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-794166","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-14 01:06:56","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=794166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794166\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=794166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=794166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=794166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}