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| Eunice Kirwa |
Breaking away from Mariya Konovalova and Sairi Maeda after 31km,
Eunice Jepkirui Kirwa of Bahrain won the 2015 Nagoya Womens Marathon in 2:22:08, the fastest time in the history of the marathon.
In 2010 when the race went from being an elite-only
to a mass-participation event, Kirwa’s winning time was faster than
the previous course record of 2:22:19, recorded 15 years ago by 2000
Olympic champion Naoko Takahashi.
During the award ceremony Kirwa said: “I did not expect to run such a
fast time. I was
thinking of a time around 2:23, so I am satisfied with my time. I always
wanted to run the Nagoya Women’s Marathon, so I am happy to win the
race today.”
Finishing second, with a time of 2:22:27, 40-year-old Mariya
Konovalova of Russia who won last year set a personal best and broke the womens 40 and over record. Before today, the fastest marathon by a woman
older than 40 was 2:24:54 by Irina Mikitenko at the 2013 Berlin
Marathon. Konovalova improved on that mark by more than two minutes.
Konovalova, a world finalist over 5000m 20 years ago, had a previous PB
of 2:22:46.
Placing third was Sairi Maeda. Running just the
second marathon of her career, Maeda improved her personal best by
nearly four minutes from 2:26:46 to 2:22:48, moving to eighth on the
national all-time list with the fastest performance by a Japanese woman
since 2007.
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