Saturday, May 28, 2011

Dire Tune of Ethiopia beats elite men and wins women's race by more than 64 seconds

(May 28, 2011, The Ottawa Citizen)--For the second straight year, an ailing Dire Tune of Ethiopia was the class of the Ottawa Race Weeknd 10-kilometre race Saturday night, beating the elite men and winning the women's race by more than 64 seconds.

As part of the group of elite female racers which was given a three-minute, 55-second advantage over the men's elite field in the gender challenge race, it was 12 seconds less than 2010, but still more than enough for Tune, who will represent her country at the 2011 world championships in the women's marathon.

Tune finished in a women's winning time of 31 minutes, 43.2 seconds, which was a comfortable 42.5-second margin of victory over a disappointed men's champion Deriba Merga of Ethiopia, who won the 2009 race in a course record 27:24.

But this year. Merga, who thought he could better his record on the new faster downtown 10-kilometre course, was far too aggressive in the first four kilometres and struggled home in 28:30.

Wesley Korir of Kenya was runner-up in the men's race in 29:00.3, while Ryan Vail of Portland,Oregon, took third in 29:09.0. Eric Gillis of Guelph, who was attempting to reach the medal podium for the first time in his fourth Ottawa 10-kilometre race and give Canadian running a higher profile, repeated his fourth-place finish from 2010 in 29:15.1.

Rejean Chiasson of Ottawa placed eighth in 30:05.and was the third Canadian behind Matthew Loiselle of Toronto, who was the second Canadian and seventh overall in 29:22.1.

Samira Raif of Morocco placed second in the women's race in 32:47.8, and Ejegayehu Bibaba Keneni of Ethiopia dropped to third in 32:57.9, after running with Tune for more than half of the race.

Tarah McKay-Korir was the top Canadian in eighth place at 34:36.1. Triathlete Joanna Brown of Carp was the best of the Ottawa runners in 37:07.5, which gave her 16th place.

In the five-kilometre race, Ottawa's Ryan McKenzie was the men's winner and the Canadian Forces champion in 15:04.2, while Charles Allan of Wolfe Island, Ont., took second at 15:38.2, and Mathew Setlack of Ottawa finished third in 15:41.8.

On the women's side, Leah Larocque of Kanata continued her success at the Ottawa Race Weekend by posting the fastest women's time, 17:32.0. Ioulia Nikonorova of Kanata was the runner-up at 17:40.0 and Georgette Mink of Ottawa took third at 17:43.2. Read more from The Ottawa Citizen »

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