China's women swept the medals at the 2008 Beijing International Marathon yesterday while Kenya's men also pulled out all the stops for a 1-2-3 finish.

China's Bai Xue claims the women's title at the 2008 Beijing International Marathon yesterday. [Xinhua]

Leading the way from the get-go, Hubei province's Bai Xue won the women's event in 2 hours, 26 minutes and 47 seconds. Chen Rong followed in 2:28:25 and Zhang Yingying fought to the final yard but had to settle for bronze with a time of 2:28:52.

Bai said she was dissatisfied with her performance despite claiming the crown.

"I felt very tired in the second half of the race so I didn't manage to get a good result," she said.

Meanwhile, four-time winner Sun Yingjie added to her woes by finishing outside the top 10 as memories of her drug ban and the loss of a parent continue to haunt the veteran runner.

"My feelings are very complicated right now," she said after the race. "I only resumed training one month ago due to the passing away of my father in August, but this result is even worse than how I've been doing in training."

Sun, a bronze medalist in the 10,000m at the 2003 World Championships, resumed training last year following the completion of a two-year ban after she tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs.

She did not qualify for this summer's Beijing Olympics and she has publicly stated her intention to retire next year.

"The National Games will be my last race and I will train harder this winter to make sure I medal there," she said.

Benjamin Kiptoo, winner of this year's Brescia Marathon, clocked 2:10:14 to seize gold on the men's side, while compatriots Luka Chelimo and Simon Wangai took silver and bronze.

"The whole race was excellent. We only know we've done our best," said Kiptoo.

The evergreen Kenyans showed their strength in the final 7km by creating an unassailable lead over the rest of the pack with their pace and stamina.

"The winners always come from my country because we just trained very hard. There's no tips for our success (only) hard training," said Chelimo.

The men set off from Beijing's Tian'anmen Square some 15 minutes before the women at 8am and wove their way north through the city before ending at the Olympic Sports Center. About 30,000 runners took part in the race including the full marathon (42.195 km), half marathon (21.0975 km), 10 km and mini marathon (4.2 km).

Kiptoo and Bai each collected a winner's purse of $20,000 but missed out on the $42,915 bonus on offer for smashing the course records of 2:07:35 (men's) and 2:19:38 (women's).

(China Daily October 20, 2008)