European Athletics (EAA) – News – Russian marathon success in China and Japan

Russia’s Nailya Yulamanova, the 2010 European Athletics Championships silver medallist won the Toray Cup Shanghai Marathon women’s race in a personal best of 2:26:05 on Sunday.

The 30-year-old from Cheboksary had a previous best was 2:26:30 when winning in Rotterdam last year and, after finishing ninth in Boston and then second in Barcelona, continued her streak of winning at least one marathon a year since she made her debut over the classic distance in 2006.

Another of Russia’s European Athletics Championships marathon medallists had an excellent outing on Asian soil on Sunday with Dmitriy Safronov finishing second, and improving his personal best by more than a minute to 2:10:12, at the 64th Fukuoka International Marathon in Japan.

It is also second best marathon time by a European in 2010, with only Moldova‘s Iaroslav Muschinschi – who ran 2:08:32 at the Düsseldorf Marathon in the spring – having gone faster.

In similar fashion to the way he ran in Barcelona, coming through strongly in the final 10km to take third place, Safronov ran his own race and spent much of it after 15km running on his own.

He was in the leading pack up to just after 15km when Morocco’s two-time world champion Jaouad Gharib, who was to eventually win in 2:08:24, took off.

Safronov drifted off the back of the main leading pack and went through the halfway point in 1:04:14, 23 seconds in arrears of the group chasing Gharib.

At 25km there were still three men in a bunch, including Ukraine’s Dmytro Baranovsky, still nearly 20 seconds in front of Safronov but then he started picking them off one-by-one and was in second place with six kilometres to go, although he could do little to haul in Gharib.

Safronov’s previous best time of 2:11.51 came when he won the Promonte Podgorica Marathon in Montenegro in November 2009.

Baranovsky, who set a Ukraine record of 2:07:15 at Fukuoka in 2006 to become the eighth fastest European performer ever – a time which has not been beaten by a European runner since – had to settle for sixth place in 2:13:40 on this occasion.

European Athletics  (EAA) – News –