Virtual unknown Stephen Kiprotich ran away from his Kenyan rivals Abel Kirui and Wilson Kipsang in the last three miles to win the Olympic marathon title in London on Sunday.
 
Kiprotich winning what was only Uganda's second Games medal following the success of 400 metres hurdler John Aki-Bua 40 years earlier clocked a time of two hours eight minutes 01 seconds.
 
With high temperatures ranging from 23 degrees at the start and 25 degrees at the finish it was never going to be a fast race, Kirui recording 2:08:27 and Kipsang the Virgin London Marathon champion in April, 2:09:37.
 
Kiprotich and Kirui having got themselves clear of the highly fancied Kipsang were battling it out before the former in only his fourth marathon made his sudden winning surge just before 23 miles.
 
The relative newcomer staying off the pace in the early stages, said: "The pace was too fast and I knew I could not run away from them so I just had to keep up with them.
 
"I tried to settle and then I had to break away because I wanted to win this medal."
 
Kiprotich narrowly missing the Ugandan record of 2:07:20 he posted in Enschede last year, added:  "Now I am 'known', so I am happy I am now a known athlete."
 
Kirui the 2009 and 2011 World champion, said: "Actually, when me and Kipsang were together, I thought we were the only ones who would fight for the gold.
 
"I thought I was going to sprint with Kipsang in the final kilometres. Suprisingly, I saw Stephen with us and it was difficult to make a move. He stayed with us for a long time and he made a stronger move in the end."

David Martin

LONDON 2012 

• • 

    StephenKIPROTICH

    UGA
  • 

    AbelKIRUI

    KEN
  • 

    Wilson KipsangKIPROTICH

    KEN

Marathon – M   Final – IAAF
Intermediate

• Results
• 5km
• 10km
• 15km
• 20km
• Half
• 25km
• 30km
• 35km
• 40km

12 August 2012 – 11:00

Position	Bib	Athlete	Country	Mark	.
1	3113	Stephen Kiprotich	UGA	2:08:01	.
2	2304	Abel Kirui	KEN	2:08:27	.
3	2302	Wilson Kipsang Kiprotich	KEN	2:09:37	.
4	3225	Mebrahtom Keflezighi	USA	2:11:06	.
5	1226	Marilson dos Santos	BRA	2:11:10	.
6	2230	Kentaro Nakamoto	JPN	2:11:16	.
7	3368	Cuthbert Nyasango	ZIM	2:12:08	(PB)
8	1229	Paulo Roberto Paula	BRA	2:12:17	.
9	2672	Henryk Szost	POL	2:12:28	.
10	2139	Ruggero Pertile	ITA	2:12:45	.
11	2971	Viktor Röthlin	SUI	2:12:48	.
12	3147	Oleksandr Sitkovskyy	UKR	2:12:56	(SB)
13	1222	Franck de Almeida	BRA	2:13:35	.
14	2824	Aleksey Reunkov	RUS	2:13:49	.
15	3367	Wirimai Juwawo	ZIM	2:14:09	(SB)
16	1059	Michael Shelley	AUS	2:14:10	.
17	2315	Emmanuel Kipchirchir Mutai	KEN	2:14:49	.
18	2457	Rachid Kisri	MAR	2:15:09	.
19	1593	Yared Asmerom	ERI	2:15:24	.
20	1304	Dylan Wykes	CAN	2:15:26	.
21	2629	Raúl Pacheco	PER	2:15:35	.
22	1288	Eric Gillis	CAN	2:16:00	.
23	2825	Dmitriy Safronov	RUS	2:16:04	.
24	1615	Carles Castillejo	ESP	2:16:17	.
25	2484	Iaroslav Musinschi	MDA	2:16:25	.
26	2760	Marius Ionescu	ROU	2:16:28	.
27	1285	Reid Coolsaet	CAN	2:16:29	.
28	1041	Martin Dent	AUS	2:16:29	(SB)
29	3146	Vitaliy Shafar	UKR	2:16:36	.
30	1822	Lee Merrien	GBR	2:17:00	.
31	1613	Ignacio Cáceres	ESP	2:17:11	.
32	2358	Duhaeng Lee	KOR	2:17:19	.
33	3015	Faustine Mussa	TAN	2:17:39	.
34	1620	José Carlos Hernández	ESP	2:17:48	.
35	1019	Miguel Barzola	ARG	2:17:54	.
36	2594	Urige Buta	NOR	2:17:58	.
37	2800	Grigoriy Andreev	RUS	2:18:20	.
38	2014	José Amado García	GUA	2:18:23	.
39	2507	Daniel Vargas	MEX	2:18:26	.
40	2242	Ryo Yamamoto	JPN	2:18:34	.
41	1548	Jesper Faurschou	DEN	2:18:44	.
42	2117	Kári Steinn Karlsson	ISL	2:18:47	.
43	2777	Lusapho April	RSA	2:19:00	.
44	2480	Mike Tebulo	MAW	2:19:11	(SB)
45	2222	Arata Fujiwara	JPN	2:19:11	.
46	2929	Primož Kobe	SLO	2:19:28	.
47	2079	Guor Marial	IOA	2:19:32	.
48	2709	Luís Feiteira	POR	2:19:40	(SB)
49	2786	Stephen Mokoka	RSA	2:19:52	.
50	1570	Miguel Ángel Almachi	ECU	2:19:53	.
51	2515	Ser-Od Bat-Ochir	MGL	2:20:10	.
52	2736	Song-Chol Pak	PRK	2:20:20	.
53	2735	Kwang-Hyok Kim	PRK	2:20:20	.
54	1348	Guojian Dong	CHN	2:20:39	.
55	2962	Anuradha Cooray	SRI	2:20:41	.
56	2216	Methkal Abu Drais	JOR	2:21:00	.
57	2096	Mark Kenneally	IRL	2:21:13	.
58	1596	Yonas Kifle	ERI	2:21:25	.
59	3123	Ivan Babaryka	UKR	2:21:52	.
60	2496	Carlos Cordero	MEX	2:22:08	.
61	1828	Scott Overall	GBR	2:22:37	.
62	3348	Pedro Mora	VEN	2:22:40	.
63	1047	Jeff Hunt	AUS	2:22:59	.
64	1167	Stsiapan Rahautsou	BLR	2:23:23	.
65	1449	César Lizano	CRC	2:24:16	.
66	3016	Samson Ramadhani	TAN	2:24:53	(SB)
67	1517	Jan Kreisinger	CZE	2:25:03	.
68	2753	Mohammed Abduh Bakhet	QAT	2:25:17	.
69	1731	Jussi Utriainen	FIN	2:26:25	.
70	2500	Arturo Malaquias	MEX	2:26:37	.
71	3066	Wissem Hosni	TUN	2:26:43	.
72	2045	Tamás Kovács	HUN	2:27:48	.
73	2351	Sinkweon Jang	KOR	2:28:20	.
74	1012	Antoni Bernadó	AND	2:28:34	.
75	2423	Marcel Tschopp	LIE	2:28:54	.
76	3076	Bekir Karayel	TUR	2:29:38	.
77	3030	Chia-Che Chang	TPE	2:29:58	.
78	2070	Ram Singh Yadav	IND	2:30:06	.
79	2905	Jean Pierre Mvuyekure	RWA	2:30:19	.
80	1985	Konstadínos Poúlios	GRE	2:33:17	.
81	2121	Zohar Zemiro	ISR	2:34:59	.
82	2352	Jinhyeok Jeong	KOR	2:38:45	.
83	1412	Juan Carlos Cardona	COL	2:40:13	.
84	3026	Augusto Soares	TLS	2:45:09	.
85	2419	Tsepo Ramonene	LES	2:55:54	.
.	1007	Tayeb Filali	ALG	DNF	.
.	1089	Günther Weidlinger	AUT	DNF	.
.	1354	Zicheng Li	CHN	DNF	.
.	1407	Zatara Mande Ilunga	COD	DNF	.
.	1602	Samuel Tsegay	ERI	DNF	.
.	1676	Ayele Abshero	ETH	DNF	.
.	1684	Getu Feleke	ETH	DNF	.
.	1692	Dino Sefir	ETH	DNF	.
.	1756	Abraham Kiprotich	FRA	DNF	.
.	1761	Abdellatif Meftah	FRA	DNF	.
.	1768	Patrick Tambwé	FRA	DNF	.
.	2397	Valerijs Žolnerovics	LAT	DNF	.
.	2409	Ali Mabrouk El Zaidi	LBA	DNF	.
.	2451	Abderrahime Bouramdane	MAR	DNF	.
.	2485	Roman Prodius	MDA	DNF	.
.	2717	Rui Pedro Silva	POR	DNF	.
.	2788	Coolboy Ngamole	RSA	DNF	.
.	2953	Darko Živanovic	SRB	DNF	.
.	3203	Abdihakem Abdirahman	USA	DNF	.
.	3219	Ryan Hall	USA	DNF