Tirop breaks course record, Kamworor registers third win in TCS World 10K

Agnes Jebet Tirop made it big this time as she bettered her Kenyan country-mate Lucy Kabuu's four year old course record by 27 seconds to win the women's race at the TCS World 10K marathon here today.

As predicted the fast women's field also witnessed all top three podium finishers ran better than Kabuu's 2014 time of 31:46s today.

Interestingly, the top Indian runner today, Sanjivani Jadhav, also improved the national best in 10K with huge margin as she clocked an impressive 33:38s while finishing 10th overall.

Incidentally the previous Indian best (34:32s) was also logged at Bengaluru way back in 2009 by another Maharashtrian Kavita Raut.

Swati Gadhave, who came nearer to the previous mark with a time of 34:45s here two years ago, finished 13th (second among the Indians) at 35:08s this morning. Sanjivani was a silver medalist in 10,000m at the World University Games last year.

The elite women's race saw nine runners in the leading group until the half-way mark where five of them break away with increased pace.

Meanwhile in the men's section, Geoffrey Kamworor, the three-time World half-marathon and two-time world cross-country champion, was a pre-race favourite among the men and he justified his billing to win his third ever title here.

Quite interestingly Kamworor ran only three times the 10K races in his career to date. All three of them he ran here and won in 2012, 2014 and 2018.

I love to run in Indian road races. I loved this atmosphere and certainly wish to come back, Kamworor said after the race although he could not accomplish the goal of bettering his own course record (27:44s).

The temperature was raising that hampered my idea of taking the record, he added after winning today's race in 28:18s.

Ethiopians Berhanu Legesse (28:38) and Mosinet Geremew (28:39) won the silver and bronze medals respectively.

Indian course record-holder Suresh Kumar (29:49 in 2015) won the title again (overall 11th) this year in a tight sprint finish from Man Singh as both timed 30:12s today.