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Runners at a marathon (symbolic image)
Photo: Christian Charisius / dpa
The 37th Munich Marathon has been overshadowed by two curious mishaps. While the men ran about 100 meters too much due to a course misdirection, the fastest women turned around too early at a turn and had to run two extra laps in the Olympic Stadium to complete the full distance of 42.195 km.
"Why they turned off so early is still being analysed," said race director Gernot Weigl on Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR). The race is to be evaluated by Monday. "I can't blame anybody," Weigl said.
According to the best German starter Sebastian Hendel, the fastest men had taken a wrong turn shortly after kilometer 10. "It was about 20 seconds more that we had on the kilometre," said Hendel. "That can happen, but it was annoying for us because we walked about 100 meters too much."
Hendel set a personal best time (2:09.21) in fifth place for Kenya's Bernard Muia Katui (2:10.14 hours) despite the longer distance. He was more than two minutes short of the standard for participation in next year's Summer Games, which is 2:08:10 hours.
The runners were also misguided
In the women's race, according to BR, the leading Kenyans Catherine Cherotich and Tecla Chebet, among others, had turned around too early on Ludwigstraße just before Odeonsplatz. The »Bild« reported that the lead vehicle had turned left too early at a construction site. The pacemaker and the two runners followed the car. The race control around Weigl decided at short notice to extend the track by two stadium laps of 400 meters each.
Cherotich won in 2:31:34 hours. The best German was Katka Wenzler in seventh place (2:54:07 hours). On Monday, the distance of the women's top will be measured to ensure the validity of the results.
ast/sid/dpa