The Kenyan dominance in long runs was also confirmed at the 41st Sofia Marathon.
In reality, the representatives of the African country conceded to the remaining two-thirds of the classic distance, one half-marathon and the 10-kilometer triples, and for that they simply did not have a representative in the run.
In the men’s classic marathon, Kenyans Shedrack Kimayo and Cornelius Chepkok proved to be the most durable, at the end the Moroccan Bilal Maroum could not keep up their pace and fell behind. The final sprint was for Kimayo, ahead of his compatriot by 21 seconds. In the ladies, Harriet Chebore (Ken) broke away early and ran almost all the time on her own. For her victory, she was more than 7 minutes ahead of the 2017 and 2018 champion Ruth Mathebo (Ken), the bronze went to the Swiss Rachel Poffett.
Among the Bulgarians, Ismail Senanji, who finished seventh among the men with 2.27:14 h and Nadezhda Angelova, who finished fourth among the women with 2.55:51 h, were the fastest. They both deserved the special bonuses of BGN 500 each for the best-placed local athletes over 42.195 km.
Kennedy Rono and Valentine Benedek-Jebet won the half marathon, and only Silvia Georgieva managed to break their dominance with third place among women.
Bulgarian athletes won the 10 km Garmin RUN with the title of Ivo Balabanov with 30.12 min and the gold of Devora Avramova with 34.23 min, and the threes were all ours.
There was also an impressive record in the number of those who started – over 7,200 participated in this year’s edition in total across all distances, which is almost a third more than last year. The latest data on the participants are: at 5 km – 1,000 started on Saturday, and at 10 km – 2,850 athletes, at 21 km – 2,460, and at 42,195 km – 1,008. Much more than before were also the arrivals from abroad, who this year were over 1100 from over 50 countries.
The champions in the classic marathon left with impressive prizes of BGN 6,000 each, cash prizes were awarded to all medalists at 42.195 km, 21 km and 10 km, as well as veterans. The total prize fund was over BGN 65,000.
The organizers followed the tradition of expanding social causes. Immediately after the mass start, the people with transplants and their accompanying medical personnel, as well as the participants from “Parakids”, who support people with specific needs and those in wheelchairs, set off along the route. “Parakids” also received a donation of BGN 4,000. 8 paraathletes from Iran came to Sofia especially for the event.