Eunice triumphs in Rotterdam
TDT | Manama
The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com
Bahrain’s elite athlete Eunice Chumba yesterday powered to an impressive victory in the women’s race of the Rotterdam Marathon in the Netherlands.
Eunice was dominant in her run as clinched her victory by more than a minute.
Her time was also the second-fastest ever in the event, as she became the first athlete from the Kingdom to triumph in the Dutch city.
The meeting was a World Athletics Gold Label road race, featuring a number of top runners from around the world.
Eunice’s fellow-Bahraini Rose Chelimo joined her on the podium, finishing in third place.
The pair were among the leading contenders in the event.
At the start, Eunice was joined by three others as they passed through the first 10km in just under 33 minutes.
Eunice then reached the halfway point with Ethiopia’s Meseret Gebre and Eritrea’s Dolshi Tesfu as her company in under an hour and nine minutes, which put them on pace to beat the course record set 11 years ago by 2012 Olympic champion Tiki Gelana from Ethiopia, who was also competing.
Eunice then started to build her gap from her rivals in the final few kilometres.
The 29-year-old, who is the Bahraini record-holder in the women’s marathon, eventually went on to capture first place in a total race time of two hours 20 minutes 31 seconds.
Eunice was just 29 seconds shy of her personal best of 2:20:02 which she set in Seoul, South Korea, last year, and it was her third sub-2:21:00 time within 12 months.
Tesfu finished second in 2:21:35, while Bahrain’s Rose, the 2017 world champion, made her way through the field in the second half of the race to place third in 2:26:21.
Rose’s mark was well off her personal best of 2:23:12, which she set in the same race last year.
Fatima Azzahraa Nafie of Spain came fourth in 2:26:44, while Aleksandra Lisowska of Poland came fifth in the same time.
Gelana was classified sixth amongst the women in 2:27:19, while Pascalia Jepkogei of Kenya was seventh in 2:28:28 and Sakiho Tsutsui of Japan rounded out the top eight in 2:29:09.
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