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Roundup: Eritrea's Ghebreselassie takes men's marathon gold at Beijing worlds

Xinhua, August 22, 2015 Adjust font size:

Ghirmay Ghebreselassie from Eritrea became the youngest ever marathon world champion as he upset a strong field of fellow East Africans to win the first title of the Beijing world championships on Saturday.

The 19-year-old clocked two hours, 12 minutes and 27 seconds for his first world championship title, beating Ethiopia's Yemane Tsegay into second place.

The Ethiopian, who had once overtaken Ghebreslassie in the last kilometers, timed 2:13.07 for silver with Munyo Solomon Mutai from Uganda taking bronze in 2:13:29.

It was Eritrea's first world championships gold medal and medal after Tadesse Zersenay's 10,000m silver in Berlin in 2009.

"I cannot explain what I am feeling, I am so happy," he said. "I am so proud of this victory. My medal is the first gold medal in Eritrean history. It is a very special thing for our history. It gives me motivation to continue to work hard."

The Kenyans had a lackluster performance in the race with world record holder Dennis Kimetto and previous world record holder Wilson Kipsang both failing to finish while Paris marathon champion Mark Korir crossed the line in 22nd place.

In the women's shot put, Christina Schwanitz of Germany won the gold with a best throw of 20.37 meters, relegating China's Gong Lijiao to second place on a night when the world championships host was hoping for a gold medal.

Gong, who was fifth at the Olympics in the same stadium seven years ago and third at the London Games, took silver with a throw of 20.30m.

American Michelle Carter had bronze.

In the last final on the opening day, British star Mo Farah survived a brutal fight to defend his 10,000m title for a record sixth consecutive global title.

The 32-year-old Farah clocked 27 minutes 01.13 seconds for gold, ahead of Kenyans Geoffrey Kamworor (27:01.76) and Paul Tanui (27:02.83).

Since losing to Ibrahim Jeilan of Ethiopia in the 10,000m at the 2011 worlds in Daegu, Farah managed to win the 5,000m in South Korea, and followed up with 5,000m-10,000m doubles at both the London 2012 Olympics and the 2013 world championships in Moscow. Endite