Jeff Amechi Agbodo, Onitsha
Kenyan athletes have won both male and female categories of the maiden Onitsha City 21km Marathon held in Onitsha, Anambra State.
For the male category, Bernard Sang came first, with Benson Nzyoki coming second and Moses Kipkosgei Bowen third.
Sand winning time was 64 minutes, 34 seconds.
Emmanuel Gergum and Fadekemi Olude from Plateau State come tops as male and female champions of Nigerian nationality ag race which started at about 6:30 am.
William Amposah from Ghana finished overall fifth and was the first West African to finish the race.
Augustine Nwafor was the first Onitsha man to finish.
The 10 athlete winners went home with money prices for both male and female categories: 1st winners (N1 million), 2nd (N750, 000), 3rd (N500,000), 4th (N300,000), 5th (N200,000), 6th (N100,000), 7th (N75,000), 8th (N50,000), 9th (N40,000) and 10th position (N20,000).
About 1000 athletes with 57 elites from different countries participated in the marathon.
The Onitsha City Marathon was sponsored by Onitsha Business School to create world class sporting facilities cut across Onitsha city to promote, propagate and harness the idle sports talents in the Onitsha and beyond.
Speaking after the race, the organiser of the marathon and Director of the Onitsha Business School, Prof. Olusegun Sogbesan, rated the exercise as having succeeded beyond his imagination, saying that no causality was recorded throughout the race.
He said that Marathon would improve on the mistakes of this year in the next edition, commending the athletes who participated, especially those who came from outside Nigeria.
Prof. Sogbesan said that the essence of the race was to place Onitsha city on the global map as a centre of sporting excellence, to change the perception of Onitsha as a city known only trade to a sporting city.