Athletics story by sport.co.uk, Fri, 22 May 2009 09:28:18 GMT



The 29th London Marathon was won by Kenya's Olympic champion Sammy Wanjiru who kept his nerve to win the men's race by 10 seconds, holding off a determined challenge by Beijing bronze-medallist Tsegay Kebede of Ethiopia at the 19 mile mark. Jaouad Gharbib of Morocco finished in third place.Wanjiru had been aiming to break the world record - currently held by Haile Gebrselassie- and though it was clear just after half-way through the 26 mile slog that this was not going to happen, the Kenyan still managed to notch a career fastest time and set an unofficial course record of two hours, five minutes, 10 seconds.



In the women's race, there was an admirable run by Great Britain's Mara Yamauchi who finished second to last years' defending champion Irina Mikitenko of Germany.



Yamauchi, whose previous best in a London Marathon was sixth, produced a solid performance, keeping pace with the dominant Mikitenko throughout the race and only gave way six miles from home when the German put in the first of two spurts to go on and win in an unofficial time of two hours, 22 minutes, 11 seconds.



Yamauchi finished in 2 hours 23min 12sec - a personal best