22 March 2009: Negewo debuts at the Rome Marathon finishing in 16th Position in 2:16:01
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In his first ever international marathon Running Across Borders athlete Urga Negewo came through the finish line in 16th position clocking a time of 2:16:01. The 23 year old athlete from the Oromia region of Ethiopia had only raced in one previous marathon - the Abebe Bikila International Marathon, Addis Ababa in June 2008 (2:20:23). This was the biggest race of Urga’s career to date and his achievement in Rome is a very promising start for such a young athlete.
In the elite men’s marathon race the challenge that Urga Negewo was to face was not underestimated. The 15th Rome Marathon had an elite feild with 18 runners with PB’s under 2:12 including half marathon world champion Paul Kirui (1:00:18), Berlin Marathon winner Philip Manyim (2:07:41) and Hosea Rotich (2:07:24 Paris). Established managers in the sport were invited as well as Race Directors from the New York Marathon and Berlin Marathons. There was to be significant international media presence as a group of 5 pacemakers were looking to target a time for the new Rome course record.
The men’s race started at a fast pace in the first part of the race where pacemaker Festus Langat went through the first 10 km in 29:48. The Kenyan pack maintained the fast pace reaching the 15 km mark in 45:01, inside a sub-2:07 pace. They reached 21 km (1:03:55). Urga‘s strategy was not to go out with the lead group but to run with the second pacemaking group. He came through 10km in 30:15 and continued to run the first half in a steady pace in 1:05:10. This ultimately paid of as several runners faded or dropped out due to the fast pace at the front. Urga moved from 19 position at the half way mark to 17 by 35 Km (1:50:26) and 16th at the finish line.
Womens Race
Firehiwot Dado, who entered the Rome Marathon race with a 2:37:34 PB set in Kosice in 2008, produced a major surprise taking the win in the women’s race, smashing her lifetime best to 2:27:08. Dado is from the Arsi region that is home to Haile Gebrselassie and is also the rural home to the majority of Running Across Borders’ developmental athletes. Tetyana Filonyuk from Ukraine and Haile Lema Kebebusch from Ethiopia also run under their previous PB clocking respectively in 2:27:43 and 2:28:08.
The leading athletes reached the halfway mark in 1:13:06 at a 2:26 pace. Filonyuk, Dado and Lema formed the leading trio reaching 30 km in 1:44:03 with a one-second gap over Cheruiyot. Dado upped the pace breaking away from Filonyuk at 32 km and injected a strong pace in the final part of the race (35 km in 2:00:56) dropping Filonyuk by 45 seconds at 40 km (2:18:22).
Ethiopian athletes Urga Negewo, Debebe Tolossa, Shume Tafere, Firehiwot Dado, Birbo Guta Abraham Kabeto and Kassa Tadesse, with Massimiliano Monteforte (Elite runners Coordinator) Malcolm Anderson RAB Co-director) and Carmelo Giordano (Director UniCredit Banca di Roma) who was raising publicity for the Bikila Marathon in June 2010.
Koulum Kiptoo, (right) the 29 year old from Kapsabet and winner of two marathon races in Brescia and Beijing in 2008, went on to smash the Italian all-comers’ record finishing in 2:07:17 - the second best time in the world this year behind Haile Gebrselassie’s 2:05:29 in Dubai. Paul Kirui Kiprop, a former IAAF World Half-Marathon champion and winner at the 2008 ING Amsterdam Marathon finished second in 2:08:23. Joseph Ngeny, who also started as a pacemaker, completed the Kenyan sweep finishing in third with a new PB of 2:08:41.
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