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Making her marathon debut, Russian Tatiana Aryasova was the big winner at today's 23rd City of Los Angeles Marathon. The former Tatiana Khmeleva not only won the women's race in two hours and 29 minutes and 9 seconds (unofficial), but her time was also good enough to win the race's gender battle, dubbed "The Challenge," where the elite women are given a headstart and the top men try to catch them. She banked $120,000 in prize money plus a new Honda automobile.
The men's winner was Kenyan Laban Moiben who ran 2:13:51. Since the women were given a 19 minute and 38 second headstart, Arysova won by about four and one-half minutes. According to the split data provided by the race, Arysova hit 30 km in 1:45:51, while Moiben got to the same mark in 1:35:30. That meant that the Russian was still ten minutes ahead with 12.195 km to go, not nearly enough distance for Moiben to make up for lost time. To match Arysova at the finish line, he would need to run 2:09:31.
Arysova's performance is noteworthy because she ran most of the race alone without the help of any pacemaking.
In the men's race Kenyan Christopher Kiprotich finished second in 2:14:17 (unofficial), while the women's runner-up was Russian Yuliya Gromova in 2:34:13 (unofficial).
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