Moldova’s Iaroslav Musinschi took nearly two minutes off his national Marathon record with a course record 2:08:32 at the Dusseldorf Marathon on Sunday.
The 33 year-old runner is also the fastest European runner so far this year and the first to go under the 2:10 barrier.
Musinschi came home ahead of 4,200 runners in the race in calm conditions with temperatures hovering around the 12 degrees Celsius mark to win 21,000 euros in prize money.
Aided by a pacemaker, the former steeplechaser who switched to the roads in 2005 reached the halfway point otherwise on his own in 64:04 and after that never faltered.
Second was the Ukraine’s Andrej Toptun in personal best of 2:12:08 while Poland’s Pawel Ochal was third in 2:13:23.
Germany’s Falk Cierpinski, the son of the 1976 and 1980 Olympic Games Marathon double gold medallist Waldemar Cierpinski, came home fourth with 2:17:18.
Russia’s Natalya Volgina won the women’s race with 2:30:47, her best outing for three years.
Turkey’s Mehtap Sizmaz had been well ahead early in the women’s race, passing 10km in 34:26 and was on target for around 2:25, but this pace was too audacious and she eventually dropped out of the race.
Volgina, who has a best of 2:27:32 from 2006, then took the lead at 25km. The 33-year-old runner finished almost one minute ahead of Belarus’ Volha Salevich, who was second in 2:31:41, while another Russian Svetlana Semova was third in 2:33:01.
