Teenager Mekonnen's stunning marathon debut win in Dubai 2014. For the third consecutive year, the Standard Chartered Dubai Marathon was won by a runner making his debut over the classic distance with Ethiopia's Tsegaye Mekonnen taking the plaudits at the IAAF Gold Label Road Race in 2:04:32 on Friday (24). Amazingly, Mekonnen is just 18 years old. Although he had some reasonable performances on the roads in 2013, with a half marathon personal best of 1:02:53 and a fifth-place finish in the 5000m at the 2012 IAAF World Junior Championships, nobody was prepared for him to produce such a stunning performance. He set a world junior record for the distance, beating the previous mark by more than a minute, which had belonged to Kenya's Eric Ndiema who ran 2:06:07 in the 2011 Amsterdam Marathon. It was also the third fastest debut ever on a record-eligible course and Mekonnen was also just a tantalising nine seconds away from the Dubai course record set by his compatriot Ayele Abshero in 2012. Completing an all-Ethiopian podium, Markos Geneti ran 2:05:13 for second place while Girmay Birhanu was third in in 2:05:49. The men's race began fast with split times inside the world record of 2:03:23 established by Kenya's Wilson Kipsang in Berlin last September. A big group of 20 athletes passed 10km in 29:14 and then reached the half-way mark in 61:37. However, the pace started to drop as the temperatures rose above 20 degrees Celsius in the second half of the race. The slight change in tempo, from about 2:58 to 3:00 per kilometre, was enough for Kipsang's world record to soon drift out of reach. A group of nine runners was reduced to six shortly after the leading pack passed the 30km mark in 1:28:15. It was at this point that Tamirat Tola surged ahead, and only Mekonnen and Geneti were able to follow their compatriot, although when Tola noticeably gestured that they should help him maintaining the pace they declined. Mekonnen clearly had his own plans. The teenager moved shortly after passing the 35km checkpoint, injecting kilometre splits of 2:51, 2:52 and 2:54 for the 36th, 37th and 38th kilometres and there was no way back for Geneti and Tola, who was passed by Birhanu in the closing stages of the race and finished fourth in 2:06:17. "The pace was changing a lot during the first half, which was quite tough. I think I could have run faster with an even pace," said Mekonnen. "But I am of course very happy and proud of my performance. I had no idea about the world junior record, so this is a bonus for me."

• published: 25 Jan 2014
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