Winner of Frankfurt Marathon just 4 seconds outside world record...

Wilson Kipsang of Kenya has won the Frankfurt Marathon (Sun 30th Oct 2011) in a time of 2:03:42, a mere four seconds short of Patrick Makau’s World record of 2:03:38, set in Berlin just five weeks ago. His time was also over a minute faster than his 2:04:57 in Frankfurt last year.

From the IAAF..."The race went exactly as Kipsang had planned it, until just after 30 kilometres of the 42.195k. An early morning shower had given way to a still, slightly misty morning, with temperatures rising from 11C at the 10am start to around 14C at the finish (52-58F); just about perfect conditions for a Marathon.  A group of 15 men went through 10k in 29:25, diminishing to a sextet at halfway in 1:01:40, four seconds faster than Makau in Berlin. Deriba Merga of Ethiopia, who finished fourth in the Beijing Olympics, was still in the lee of the pacemaker, Peter Kirui of Kenya, who was reproducing his metronomic feats from Berlin last month; but so were relative unknown Kenyans, Levy Matebo and Albert Matebor.

But it was clear that the pace was dropping when Kipsang went up onto Kirui’s shoulder at around 33k, and when the defending champion saw at 35k that he was heading for a 2:04 finish, he took off by himself. It was Kipsang against the clock. And what a race he made of it. Kipsang’s 2:03:42 is clearly the second fastest in history, behind Makau, but 17 seconds ahead of the great Haile Gebselassie, whose 2:03:59 has taken a bit of a battering in recent weeks."

What's almost as amazing is that a record 14 men finished under 2:10, the most in any Marathon ever. Even Kirui the pacemaker managed to hang in there to finish 6th in 2:06:33!

Surely at this stage it's only a matter of when the Marathon record will be broken rather than if???