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Mami completes Gold Coast marathon
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Posted on Jul 03 2011
Mamiko Oshima-Berger was among the more than 4,500 finishers in yesterday’s 2011 Gold Coast Airport Marathon in Queensland, Australia.
The CNMI runner completed the 42.195-kilometer race in three hours, 53 minutes, and 30 seconds to take the No. 1,638 spot out of the 4,548 finishers in the annual event. Oshima-Berger was entered in the 40 top 44 age group and placed 63rd out of 259 runners in her field and 333rd out of 1,505 female finishers.
The 41-year-old runner had a split time of 1:31:40 and completed the first 5 kilometers of the race in 21:05. She kept her pace in the next 20 kilometers before slowing down in the last 17.
Oshima-Berger met her target time in Gold Coast, as she eyed to finish the race between three to four hours.
Nicholas Manza Kamakya of Kenya was the No. 1 overall finisher in yesterday’s race, submitting a blistering time of 2:10:01. The veteran runner eclipsed the 2010 winning time of fellow Kenyan James Kariuki Mbugua (2:13:53).
Kenya had a Top 3 finish in the men’s division with Albert Kiplagat Matebor and Japhet Kipchirchir Kipkorir placing second and third respectively. Matebor crossed the finish line just 12 seconds behind Kamakya, as the latter posted 2:10:13, while Kipkorir logged 2:10:50.
Two Japanese runners made it to the Top 5 with Taiga Ito recording 2:13:16 and Noriaki Takahashi posting 2:14:13.
Ethiopia’s Goitetom Haftu Tesema was the first female finisher at 2:30:08, which was also faster than the 2010 winning time (2:31:33) of Japanese Kaori Yoshida. The Kuala Lumpur Marathon winner finished 18th overall and had a split time of 1:14:27
Canada’s Roxie Fraser was the second overall female finisher, but was more than 10 minutes behind Tesema after the former recorded 2:41:17. Japan’s Chihiro Tanaka completed the Top 3 with her 2:43:04.
A total of 5,086 runners joined the longest event in the weekend racefest, which also featured a half marathon, 10K, 5K, 4K, and 2K runs, and wheelchair half marathon. Over 21,000 runners joined the weekend races with the half marathon drawing the most participants with 8,901. In the 10K race, 5,998 joined; 3,625 for 5K; 419 for 4K; 722 for 2K; and 10 for wheelchair half marathon.
