Gharib wins men's marathon

Jaouad Gharib of Morocco set a new championship record of 2:08:31 as he won the men's marathon event at the ninth World Athletics Championships in Paris, France, on the penultimate day of competition today.

Gharib, who kept moving between eighth and twelfth place until the 15km mark, began moving up thereafter, and got into the second position as the runners neared the 20km mark, behind Frederick Cherono of Kenya.

But thereafter he started slipping rapidly and went down to the tenth place once again by the halfway mark, a little over 21km.

Gharib then started making his way up again, but this time he was more measured about it, getting to the fourth place by the 25km mark and the third place by 30km. Cherono by this time had slipped to the 18th place and was soon to make his exit from the race.

As the runners reached the 35km mark, Gharib went into the lead for the first time, barely ahead of Michael Rotich, another Kenyan, and with Julio Rey of Spain just a second behind.

Five kilometres later, Rey and Gharib were battling it out for the lead, with both running neck-and-neck at 2:02:05, with Stefano Baldini of Italy in third place, 37 seconds behind, followed closely by Rotich and Japan's Shigeru Aburaya.

Gharib then stepped up his pace and broke away from Rey to finish with a new championship record. Rey picked up the silver in 2:08:38, while Baldini held out against a late surge by Portuguese runner Alberto Chaiça to take the bronze in 2:09:14. Michael Rotich finished in eight place.

Ethiopia's Olympic and world champion Gezahegne Abera, who was the pre-race favourite to win the marathon, dropped out by the 30km stage.