A NEW Rössing Namibia Marathon Champion was crowned on Saturday, after debutant Paulus Iyambo finished the 42,2 km race with a personal best time of two hours, 23 minutes and four seconds.
The Namibian Defence Force (NDF) member’s winning time was nearly three minutes faster than last year’s winner Pinehas Embashu’s 2:25:58.The women’s marathon winner for the second consecutive year is Helalia Johannes (02:51:58), also of the NDF, improving her winning time from last year by nearly seven minutes. Johannes will be representing Namibia at the 2012 Olympics.There were 80 marathon runners in this year’s event compared to last year’s 60. The marathon record is still held by Luketz Swartbooi, who ran 2:11:23 in 1992.In second and third place in the men’s race were Frans Hosea (NDF) with a time of 02:24:38 while another NDF teammate, Simon Shipanga, finished third in 02:25:21.The two runners-up in the women’s race were Selma Nambadi (03:20:01) and Rachel Akukutela (03:24:55) in third place.The Men’s Open and Women’s Open winners won N$10 000 cash each as well as the recently introduced Development Bonus worth N$20 000 each in support of the continued development of their athletics careers.
