Obiri cruises to 10K win in return to Boston

Hellen Obiri made her trip back to Boston a memorable one Sunday, as she cruised to another win on the American streets - this time winning the Boston Athletic Association (B.A.A.) 10K 2023 title in a time of 31.21 to avenge her last loss over the same distance in New York.

The 2023 Boston Marathon champion, after jumping to a 21 seconds lead shortly after the mile mark, scrapped any chance of a fast time in the closing stages of the race under humid conditions to eventually win by four seconds, and ahead of a Kenyan duo of Stacy Ndiwa (31.25) and Sheila Chepkirui (31.27).

The win came barely three months after she won the Boston Marathon - where she clocked 2:21.38 to finish ahead of Ethiopia’s Amane Beriso and Lonah Salpeter.

“After 8k, it was like my body was so tired because maybe I went too hard from the start,” Obiri told LetsRun.com immediately after the race. “But I said let me keep going. The most important thing was to win the race. Because after 5k, I saw, unfortunately, I wasn’t going to do a fast time here because it was too hot.”

At 8k, Obiri led by 21 seconds and looked headed toward certain victory, but a combination of Obiri fading, and an inspired late charge from Kenya’s Stacy Ndiwa led to an unexpectedly close finish.

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The 30-year-old Ndiwa, the 2018 Commonwealth Games 10,000m silver medalist, was third 3rd at 8k and 28 seconds back of Obiri, but she almost erased all of the deficit by the finish, running her final 2k in 6:09 (4:56/mile pace) while Obiri could only manage it in 6:33 (5:16 pace).

Ndiwa ended up running a two-second pb of 31:25 (her other pbs are 67:16 for the half and 2:31:53 in the marathon), but Obiri’s early work wound up paying off and she took the win and the $10,000 first-place prize.

In the men’s race, Tanzanian Gabriel Geay emerged as the winner, completing the course in 27:49.

Geay, the 2018 champion, outperformed a pair of Kenyan runners - Edwin Kurgat (28:01) and Alex Masai (28:09), to claim the title.

In another set of results elsewhere, Kenyan Samuel Mailu defended his title as he clocked 1:01:09 to win the Hamburg Half Marathon and ahead of a Kenyan duo of Victor Kipruto Togom (1:04:20) and Simon Ekidor (1:04:35).

Lorna Salpeter of Israel was the winner in the women’s race, timing 1:10:05 and in a close finish ahead of Kenyan Naom Jebet who clocked 1:10:06.