Kenya’s Kipchoge wins men’s marathon gold

You see, Rupp can identify with Adam Sandler’s character, a hockey player who only reluctantly becomes a golfer in the movie to make some much-needed money. “I wanted to run on the track, but maybe this is my best event”. Running 26.2 miles for just the second time, he claimed the bronze medal Sunday morning in Rio.

The heavy early pace began to tell on Nzima ahead of the 30km mark as he slipped back 35th, with the Kenyan trio of Korir, Stanley Kipleting Biwott and Kipchoge beginning to establish dominance, April did a good job of hanging on finding himself 17th with 15km to go.

Eliud Kipchoge raced to Olympic glory in the men’s marathon on Sunday in Rio de Janeiro after a master class in distance running.

Lilesa came in 70 seconds later to take the silver while Britain’s Callum Hawkins led midway through the race and the Scot finished in 2:11.52. American Galen Rupp claimed bronze in 2:10:05.

As he crossed the line, Lilesa raised his crossed arms in the air, a gesture of solidarity with members of his tribe who have faced violent government reprisals to their protests against a plan to redevelop farmland. Rupp won a silver medal in the 10,000 in the London 2012 Games.

“I was really devastated after that 10K”, Rupp said.

Meb Keflezighi of the USA did some push-ups at the finish line after slipping, having a little fun to celebrate his final Olympic marathon. He’s a statistics professor at BYU, where he graduated with a master’s degree in the same discipline a year ago.

In the final race of the Rio Games, Rupp gave the US its 32nd medal in track and field, tops in the standings. He also used to be a great cross country runner. It was a disappointing end for the 2004 Olympic silver medalist, but there was nothing to be ashamed of.

The men’s race turned into an exhibition as McLaughlin, from St Malachy’s, controlled it and moved away to finish nearly seven minutes ahead of Danny Noble with John Robinson third.

“That last couple of miles I felt like I was walking, just trying to keep one foot in front of the other and just get to the finish line”, said Rupp, who is from Portland, Ore.

“I was about a minute down on where I wanted to be at halfway, but I knew I couldn’t push any harder than that first half”.

Rupp, the American record-holder at 10,000 meters, pulled away from Keflezighi in later stages of the Olympic Trials marathon in February.