BOSTON - Let him be known from Hopkinton to the Back Bay as "Robert the Younger" - the second Kenyan named Robert K. Cheruiyot to win the Boston Marathon and the first person ever to run the legendary course in under 2 hours, 6 minutes.
Robert Kiprono Cheruiyot won the 114th Boston race Monday, finishing in 2:05:52 to shatter by 82 seconds the course record set by four-time winner Robert Kipkoech Cheruiyot, who's not related. American Ryan Hall, who finished third last year, missed another spot on the podium by 2 seconds, but his time of 2:08:41 was the fastest ever for U.S. runner in Boston.
"Today was a breakthrough day," said Hall, who was 6 seconds faster than Bob Kempainen in 1994. "Guys are paving new territory, and that's good for us, too."
Ethiopia's Teyba Erkesso took the women's title in 2:26:11, sprinting to the tape to win by 3 seconds in the event's third-closest women's finish. Russia's Tatyana Pushkareva smiled and waved at the TV cameras as she closed what had been a 90-second gap, but she could not quite catch Erkesso on Boylston Street.
People are also reading…
A temperature of 49 degrees and a 13 mph headwind greeted more than 26,000 runners, including an unprecedented 71 competitors who came from Greece - there were three last year - to help celebrate the 2,500th anniversary of the Battle of Marathon. It was there, in 490 B.C., that a messenger named Pheidippides was dispatched the roughly 26 miles to Athens to deliver news of a victory over Persia - and then dropped dead.
Cheruiyot, 21, surpassed the course record of 2:07:14 set by his namesake in 2006, when he was 27. A farmer back home, the younger Cheruiyot earned a bonus of $25,000 on top of the $150,000 - and a golden olive wreath from the city of Marathon, Greece - that goes the men's and women's winners.
"I am going to buy some cows," Cheruiyot said.
Player, budget decisions loom as roster transition heats up for Arizona basketball
