Kenyans Robert Cheruiyot and Alice Timbilili won the traditional 15km St. Silvester road race in South America's biggest city on Monday.
Cheruiyot ran through Sao Paulo's skyscraper-lined avenues and twisting streets in 45 minutes, 57 seconds, edging countryman Patrick Ivuti (46:53) and Brazil's Anoe dos Santos Dias (47:06).
Cheruiyot, a two-time St. Silvester winner and a three-time Boston Marathon champion, overcame the intense heat and dominated from the start, securing his third title at the traditional New Year's Eve road race.
PHOTO: AP
The 29-year-old Kenyan also won the event in 2002 and 2004. He crossed the finish line and immediately kneeled down and kissed the ground.
Ivuti, this year's Chicago marathon winner, never came close to challenging Cheruiyot on the streets of Brazil's financial center.
It was the 10th victory by a Kenyan man, matching the number of victories by Brazilians since the race became international in 1945.
Timbilili secured Kenya's sixth title in the women's event, surpassing Brazil's five victories and moving within one of Portugal's seven.
In her first St. Silvester, the 24-year-old Timbilili also dominated from the beginning, finishing in 53:07. Brazil's Marizete de Paula Rezende, the 2002 winner, was second in 53:36, and countrywoman Maria Zeferina Baldaia third in 54:43.
"I wanted to win again, but I didn't start well enough to keep up with [Timbilili]," Rezende said.
Rezende closed on Timbilili in the final kilometers, but Timbilili increased her pace and easily closed out the race.
The Kenyan was coming off two runner-up finishes in half marathons in Philadelphia in the US and Saltillo, Mexico.
Cheruiyot and Timbilili each won about US$13,500 for their victory.
Last year's winners, Brazil's Franck Caldeira and Lucelia Peres, did not fare well last year and finished out of the top five.
More than 20,000 people participated in this year's St. Silvester, which traditionally closes out the road racing calendar.
New Taipei Kings guard Jeremy Lin on Friday was named the Taiwan Professional Basketball League’s (TPBL) Player of the Month, the first domestic player to win the award, while the Hsinchu Toplus Lioneers are to welcome their third head coach in less than a year. Lin averaged 22 points, 5.4 rebounds and 6.6 assists over five games in October and last month, helping the Kings to second in the standings with a 4-2 record as of Friday. The Kings last night defeated the Lioneers 96-78 to move level with the top-of-the-table Formosa Dreamers (5-2), while in the night game, the New Taipei
TO NO AVAIL: The Denver Nuggets’ Serbian center Nikola Jokic surpassed his 53-point performance in the 2023 Western Conference semi-finals against Phoenix The Washington Wizards withstood a 56-point explosion from Denver star Nikola Jokic to beat the Nuggets 122-113 on Saturday and snap their 16-game NBA losing streak. Jokic, who won his third NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP) award last season, posted a career scoring high — surpassing a 53-point performance in game four of the 2023 Western Conference semi-finals against Phoenix and a 50-point regular-season best against Sacramento in 2021. The Serbian big man added 16 rebounds and eight assists, but it was all to no avail as Washington, buoyed by 39 points from Jordan Poole, won for the first time
Taiwan on Wednesday finished with 15 medals at the World Taekwondo Poomsae Championships in Hong Kong, taking home four gold, five silver and six bronze medals across the age group divisions. Taiwan ranked third on the medal table after South Korea with 17 golds and the US with eight golds at the five-day competition. “Your athletes have proven themselves as the best in the world,” World Taekwondo president Choue Chung-won said at the closing ceremony of the martial art contest that was attended by a record 1,727 athletes from around the world. On the first day of the competition at the Hong Kong
Taiwan’s Lin Cheng-jing won a bronze medal in the clean and jerk in the women’s under-49 kg division at the 2024 IWF World Weightlifting Championships in Bahrain on Saturday. Lin won her first medal at a World Weightlifting Championships for lifting 107kg in the clean and jerk in her weight class, 2kg more than Rosegie Ramos of the Philippines. However, Ramos won bronze for the combined lift after topping Lin by 5kg in the snatch. Ri Song-gum of North Korea won gold in the division’s combined lift with a total of 213kg, while Xiang Linxiang of China took silver with
RSS