From: Essayas Fessahaye (essayasf@yahoo.com)
Date: Sun Mar 01 2009 - 15:56:00 EST
Eritrea's Second Best Marathon Runner Yared Asmerom Finishes 3rd in Lake Biwa
Essayas Fessahaye (EAAA)
March 1, 2009
Eritrea's Yared Asmerom stood 3rd in the Lake Biwa Marathon following former world record holder and two time olympic silver medalist Kenya's Paul Tergat and two-time Lake Biwa champion Spain's Jose Rios today, Sunday March 1, 2009.
The 2008 runner up Yared Asmerom held off Japan's Masaya Shimizu in one second to place third in 2:10:49.
The prolific Kenyan pulled ahead of Spain's Jose Rios with one kilometer remaining and crossed the finish line in 2 hours, 10 minutes, 22 seconds on Sunday, March 1, 2009.
Rios, the two-time Lake Biwa champion who was gunning for his third Lake Biwa title, was second in 2:10:36 beating Yared Asmerom for a third place in 2:10:49.
The winner of Sunday's race Paul Tergat held the marathon world record from 2003 to 2007. Currently, he has all-time second fastest time in the world with 2:04:55.
It was in this competition that Yared Asemrom set his personal best time of 2:08.34 last year when he stood second. This time gaveYared a visa to his first Olympic competition in Beijing where he squeezed him self within the list of top 10 winners in 2:11:11.
Last year, Yared Asmerom was beaten by Qatar's Mubarak Hassan Shami to stand second place in the same race. The Kenyan-born Shami — formerly Richard Yatich — crossed the finish line with a time of 2 hours, 8 minutes, 23 seconds, with Yared Asmerom 11 seconds back.
Spain's RIOS Jose who stood second in the 2009 Lake Biwa edition was 6th last year with a time of 2:09:38.
Lake Biwa Marathon is Yared's first competition after his 8th place Beijing Olympic Marathon race back in August 2008. Before he left Asmara a week ago, Yared was complaining about a hip injury that messed some of his training schedules for this specific competition.
Despite his hip injury, Yared's dream was to finish the race in '2:06:34' .
Lake Biwa Marathon is the oldest continuous marathon in Japan.
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