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Olympic Games 2000 - Sydney

The Men's Marathon event at the 2000 Summer Olympics took place on October 1, 2000 in Sydney, Australia. A 22-year-old Ethiopian athlete, Gezahegne Abera, became the first Olympic marathon champion of the third millennium. He ran his race with intelligence and perfect style, dominating the tough course and, above all, the Kenyan Eric Wainaina who, like four years ago in Atlanta, took the bronze medal in this event. At his age, Abera is the youngest winner in the long history of the event. He just beat another young marathon winner, Korea’s Hwang Young-Cho, who took marathon gold in Barcelona in 1992. Both were aged 22, but the Ethiopian won by a month. Africa dominated the Olympics of fatigue and Ethiopia headed the rankings of this special classification: not only with Abera, but also with Tesfaye Tola, who won the bronze medal. Tola’s merit is not just that of his bronze medal, but also that of guiding his young companion to victory. It happened at kilometre 38, when Wainaina, exiting Canada Bay onto Western Motorway, launched a blistering attack. Tola was suffering, his muscles weary and with precious little reserves of oxygen to restore them: wisely, he sent on his team-mate, telling him to close the gap and try for the Olympic title. Abera chased after the Kenyan, caught up with him as they came up to kilometre 40 and launched the counter attack. Wainaina was taken by surprise and, short of breath, was overtaken by Abera who turned on all the gas he had left and skidded across the asphalt as though he was on a conveyor belt, flying towards Olympic glory. Glory tat the Ethiopians have known for forty years, when on a magnificent night in Rome an unknown, barefoot athlete, Abebe Bikila, was the first to pass under the Constantine Arch, also known as the Triumphant Arch. Here in Sydney there was no arch awaiting the young Ethiopian athlete, but seventy thousand celebrating spectators. And hundreds of thousands of spectators—maybe up to a million—lining the 42,196 metres of the marathon course. This race was particularly demanding not just for the distance, but above all for the wind and the nature of the course. The wind was gusting strongly throughout the city and the athletes had no sails to pull them along. On top of this, the course was like a switchback, a tormented sea on which the runners had to struggle from the crest of one concrete wave to another. But the athletes courageously overcame every difficulty. For over twenty kilometres the leader was a Botswanan runner, Tiyapo Maso, until the group of champions swallowed him up and left him in the shadows. From that point on – the half marathon was passed in 1 hour 4 minutes and 27 seconds – the real race was on. A challenge without quarter. In this tightly drawn battle, Africa beat Europe. But give the old continent credit: England’s Jon Brown put up a magnificent struggle to finish in fourth place, as did Italy’s Giacomo Leone (5th) and Spain’s Martin Fiz (6th).

Results
1°	Gezahgne	Abera	Ethiopia	2:10:11
2°	Erick	Wainaina	Kenya	2:10:31
3°	Tesfaye	Tola	Ethiopia	2:11:10
4°	Jon	Brown	Great Britain	2:11:17
5°	Giacomo	Leone	Italy	2:12:14
6°	Martín	Fiz	Spain	2:13:06
7°	Abdelkader	El Mouaziz	Morocco	2:12:49
8°	Mohamed	Ouaadi	France	2:14:04
9°	Tendai	Chimusasa	Zimbabwe	2:14:19
10°	Steve	Moneghetti	Australia	2:14:50
11°	António Pinto	Coelho	Portugal	2:15:17
12°	Hendrick	Ramaala	South Africa	2:16:19
13°	Kamiel	Maase	Netherlands	2:16:24
14°	Silvio	Guerra	Ecuador	2:16:27
15°	Mathias	Ntawulikura	Rwanda	2:16:39
16°	Thabiso	Moqhali	Lesotho	2:16:43
17°	João	N'Tyamba	Angola	2:16:43
18°	Domingos	Castro	Portugal	2:16:52
19°	Keith	Cullen	Great Britain	2:16:59
20°	Josia	Thugwane	South Africa	2:16:59
21°	Shinji	Kawashima	Japan	2:17:21
22°	Simretu	Alemayehu	Ethiopia	2:17:21
23°	Kamal	Kohil	Algeria	2:17:46
24°	Lee	Bong-Ju	South Korea	2:17:57
25°	Greg	van Hest	Netherlands	2:18:00
26°	Pavel	Kokin	Russia	2:18:02
27°	Andrés	Espinosa	Mexico	2:18:02
28°	Roderic	De Highden	Australia	2:18:04
29°	Kim	Jung-Won	North Korea	2:18:04
30°	Kim	Jong-Chol	North Korea	2:18:04
31°	Pamenos	Ballantyne	Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	2:19:08
32°	Ronnie	Holassie	Trinidad and Tobago	2:19:24
33°	Michael	Buchleitner	Austria	2:19:26
34°	Dmitriy	Kapitonov	Russia	2:19:38
35°	Pavel	Loskutov	Estonia	2:19:41
36°	Viktor	Röthlin	Switzerland	2:20:06
37°	Michael	Fietz	Germany	2:20:09
38°	Tahar	Mansouri	Tunisia	2:20:33
39°	José Luis	Molina	Costa Rica	2:20:37
40°	Carlos	Tarazona	Venezuela	2:20:39
41°	Nobuyuki	Sato	Japan	2:20:52
42°	Alberto	Juzdado	Spain	2:21:18
43°	Johannes	Maremane	South Africa	2:21:25
44°	Bruce	Deacon	Canada	2:21:38
45°	Chung	Nam-Kyun	South Korea	2:22:23
46°	Néstor	García	Uruguay	2:22:30
47°	Ahmed Abdelmougod	Soliman	Egypt	2:22:47
48°	Luketz	Swartbooi	Namibia	2:22:55
49°	Antoni	Bernadó	Andorra	2:23:03
50°	Luís	Novo	Portugal	2:23:04
51°	Lucky	Bhembe	Swaziland	2:23:08
52°	Boubker	Elafoui	Morocco	2:23:53
53°	Abel	Antón	Spain	2:24:04
54°	Carsten	Eich	Germany	2:24:11
55°	Valeriu	Vlas	Moldova	2:24:35
56°	Mark	Steinle	Great Britain	2:24:42
57°	Alex	Malinga	Uganda	2:24:53
58°	Oscar	Cortínez	Argentina	2:25:01
59°	Kil	Jae-Son	North Korea	2:25:13
60°	Petko	Stefanov	Bulgaria	2:26:24
61°	Zebedayo	Bayo	Tanzania	2:26:24
62°	Roman	Kejžar	Slovenia	2:26:38
63°	Panayiotis	Haramis	Greece	2:26:55
64°	Benjamín	Paredes	Mexico	2:27:17
65°	Baek	Seung-Do	South Korea	2:28:25
66°	Lee	Troop	Australia	2:29:32
67°	Antonio Carlos	Zeferino	Cape Verde	2:29:46
68°	Sergey	Zabavski	Tajikistan	2:30:29
69°	Rod	De Haven	United States of America	2:30:46
70°	Nazerdin	Akylbekov	Kyrgyzstan	2:31:26
71°	Calisto	da Costa	Independent Olympic Athletes	2:33:11
72°	Marco Ivan	Condori	Bolivia	2:34:11
73°	Sarath	Prasanna Gamage	Sri Lanka	2:34:39
74°	Gian Luigi	Macina	San Marino	2:35:42
75°	Vanderlei	de Lima	Brazil	2:37:08
76°	Željko	Petrovic	Bosnia and Herzegovina	2:38:29
77°	Tiyapo	Maso	Botswana	2:38:53
78°	Ðuro	Kodžo	Bosnia and Herzegovina	2:39:14
79°	José Alejandro	Semprún	Venezuela	3:00:02
80°	Rithya	To	Cambodia	3:03:56
81°	Elias	Rodriguez	Micronesia	3:09:14
Did not finish
DNF	Richard	Rodriguez	Aruba
DNF	Éder	Fialho	Brazil
DNF	Osmiro	Silva	Brazil
DNF	Patrick	Ndayisenga	Burundi
DNF	Jose Alirio	Carrasco	Colombia
DNF	Willy Kalombo	Mwenze	Democratic Republic of Congo
DNF	Daher Gadid	Omar	Djibouti
DNF	Abdellah	Béhar	France
DNF	Stefano	Baldini	Italy
DNF	Vincenzo	Modica	Italy
DNF	Takayuki	Inubushi	Japan
DNF	Kenneth	Cheruiyot	Kenya
DNF	Elijah	Lagat	Kenya
DNF	Adel	Adili	Libya
DNF	Piotr	Gladki	Poland
DNF	Rashid	Jamal	Qatar
DNF	Róbert	Štefko	Slovakia
DNF	Angelo Peter	Simon	Tanzania
DNF	Fokasi	Wilbrod	Tanzania
Did not start
Disqualified

The Women's Marathon event at the 2000 Summer Olympics took place on September 24, 2000 in the streets of Sydney, Australia.

Results
1°	Naoko	Takahashi	Japan	2:23:14
2°	Lidia	Simon	Romania	2:23:22
3°	Joyce	Chepchumba	Kenya	2:24:45
4°	Esther	Wanjiru	Kenya	2:26:17
5°	Madina	Biktagirova	Russia	2:26:33
6°	Elfenesh	Alemu	Ethiopia	2:26:54
7°	Eri	Yamaguchi	Japan	2:27:03
8°	Ham	Bong-Sil	North Korea	2:27:07
9°	Fatuma	Roba	Ethiopia	2:27:38
10°	Ren	Xiujuan	China	2:27:55
11°	Kerryn	McCann	Australia	2:28:37
12°	Maura	Viceconte	Italy	2:29:26
13°	Tegla	Loroupe	Kenya	2:29:45
14°	Irina	Bogachova	Kyrgyzstan	2:29:55
15°	Ari	Ichihashi	Japan	2:30:34
16°	Adriana	Fernández	Mexico	2:30:51
17°	Judit	Földing-Nagy	Hungary	2:30:54
18°	Ornella	Ferrara	Italy	2:31:32
19°	Christine	Clark	United States of America	2:31:35
20°	Jong	Yong-Ok	North Korea	2:31:40
21°	Manuela	Machado	Portugal	2:32:29
22°	Nadezhda	Wijenberg	Netherlands	2:32:29
23°	Lyubov	Morgunova	Russia	2:32:35
24°	Sonja	Oberem	Germany	2:33:45
25°	Martha	Tenorio	Ecuador	2:33:54
26°	Marian	Sutton	Great Britain	2:34:33
27°	Érika	Olivera	Chile	2:35:07
28°	Kim	Chang-Ok	North Korea	2:35:32
29°	Alina	Gherasim	Romania	2:36:16
30°	Ana Isabel	Alonso	Spain	2:36:45
31°	Colleen	De Reuck	South Africa	2:36:48
32°	María	Portillo Cruz	Peru	2:36:50
33°	Griselda	Gonzáles	Spain	2:38:28
34°	Oh	Mi-Ja	South Korea	2:38:42
35°	Susan	Hobson	Australia	2:38:44
36°	Gadissie	Edatto	Ethiopia	2:42:29
37°	Serap	Aktas	Turkey	2:42:40
38°	Daria	Nauer	Switzerland	2:43:00
39°	María Luisa	Muñoz	Spain	2:45:40
40°	Iglandini	González	Colombia	2:47:26
41°	Gulsara	Dadabayeva	Tajikistan	2:51:03
42°	Gina	Coello	Honduras	3:02:32
43°	Aguida	Amaral	Independent Olympic Athletes	3:10:55
44°	Rhonda	Davidson-Alley	Guam	3:13:58
45°	Sirivanh	Khetavong	Laos	3:34:27
Did not finish
DNF	Nicole	Carroll	Australia
DNF	Marleen	Renders	Belgium
DNF	Martha	Ernstsdóttir	Iceland
DNF	Garifa	Kuku	Kazakhstan
DNF	Valentina	Enachi	Moldova
DNF	Elizabeth	Mongudhi	Namibia
DNF	Anuta	Catuna	Romania
DNF	Valentina	Yegorova	Russia
Did not start
DNS	Claudia	Dreher	Germany
Disqualified

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Results 2000

MEN MARATHON
2:10:11
Gezahgne Abera
(Ethiopia)

WOMEN MARATHON
2:23:14
Naoko Takahashi
(Japan)

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