Kogo and Moreira win Bupa Great Birmingham Run
More than 18,000 runners took part in Sunday’s Bupa Great Birmingham Run, the biggest entry so far for the city’s half marathon event, with £2m estimated to have been raised for good causes.
In the men’s event, Kenyan Micah Kogo, after losing out in last month's Bupa Great North Run by a second, made amends by smashing the course record of 1:01:29 set a year ago by the legendary Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie, to take victory ahead of another Ethiopian, Abera Kuma.
Kogo, who dominated the race, clocked 1:00:17 to deny his Ethiopian rival victory by two seconds with World Record holder and pre-race favourite Zersenay Tadese third in 1:01:06.
"I'm really happy with the result," said Kogo.”It was a fabulous run for me. At the Bupa Great North Run I was just pipped to the finish, so to win today in Birmingham is fantastic."
Kogo, who along with Kuma looked set to smash the one hour barrier until a very steep incline at 11 miles wrecked the attempt, added: "This course was slightly trickier than the North Run. There is a hill at the end, plus the weather was colder than Newcastle, but that makes it a better achievement for me.
"The crowd was amazing, everyone was cheering "Kogo, go, go" which really pushed me on to get to the finish line."
In the women’s race, Portugal's Sara Moreira took total control in the last three miles to notch a runaway victory ahead of Ethiopia's former World Half Marathon champion Berhane Adere, although she missed out on Gemma Steel’s course record by 28 seconds when clocking 1:12:49. Adhere finished second in 1:15:02 with Kenya's Irene Mogaka third in 1:15:40.
"It's really good to win," said Moreira, a London Olympic Games 10,000m finalist. "I'm very happy with how the race went although I had a slow first 10km, but I picked it up in the second half.
"I'm currently training for the European Cross Country in Budapest and the tough course in Birmingham is good preparation."
So, where did you finish? Race results are available now on the Great Run website while you can check out your position on the runbritain National Ladder through the following link.
Have you claimed your free runbritain handicap? Dervish Bartlett is the current leader of October’s edition of Reward Running courtesy of a handicap improvement of 4.5 over the course of the month. There are great prizes up for grabs if you improve your own handicap, so to find out more, follow the link!