By Victor Kanayo
The 8th edition of the Access Bank Lagos City Marathon has been won by Edwin Kibet Koech of Kenya.
Kibet beat about 300 marathoners on Saturday morning to win the 42km race.
The Kenyan has also grabbed the grand prize of $50,000.
The 39-year-old finished at 2 hours, 14 minutes and six seconds to best Alemayehu Lemma of Ethiopia and Kenya’s Bernard Sang, who finished second and third respectively, and will go home with $40,000 and $30,000 respectively.
Kibet is a Kenyan-born American long distance runner.
An alumnus of Auburn University. He is also a financial management technician in the United States Army and competes in marathons as a member of the US Army World Class Athlete Program.
Alemenseh Guta of Ethiopia was the first woman to cross the finish line, followed in second place by Kebene Urisa and Kenya’s Naomi Maiyo in third place.
The winners of both the men and women’s races qualified for marathon event at the 2024 Olympics in Paris.
Felicia Adetutu, who is a Nigerian, finished 10th in the women’s race and became the first Nigerian woman to cross the finish line.
She reached the finish line in on an impressive time of 2hrs 14mins 6secs.
This is only 6 seconds shy of the winner.
The annual event was recently upgraded by the world athletics body to a gold label, less than eight years after its maiden edition.
