OREGON22: Ethiopia's Tola takes marathon gold as Kenya misses out

Kenya missed out on the Men's Marathon medals at the ongoing World Athletics Championship in Oregon after Geoffrey Kamworor and Barnabas Kiptum finished fifth and 15th respectively, clocking 2:07:15 and 2:09:00 respectively.

Tamirat Tola cut the tape first to win gold at 2:05:34 to lead his compatriot Mosinet Geremew on 2:06:45, with Belgium's Bashir Abdi taking the other posium position after clocking 2:06:49.

By doing so, Tola smashed Abel Kirui's championship record of 2:06:54 set in 2009 in Berlin.

The Ethiopian ensured that he retained the gold his compatriot Lelisa Desisa won in Doha, condemning Kenya to a consecutive championship without a gold in the men's marathon.

Kiptum and Kamworor were tasked with the hunt for medals for Team Kenya after Athletics Integrity Unity announced on Saturday the suspension of Lawrence Cherono who was part of the Kenyan team for the task after he tested positive for a banned substance.

Halfway through the race, Kiptum led the pack at 1:04:08 with Kamworor being ranked 10th.

Defending champion Lelisa Desisa started out strong, but just past midway through the first lap started falling down the pecking order, his running seemingly uneven.

With just over eight kilometers to the finish line, Tola broke away from the pack and with his long strides went on to open a 17 seconds on the 36 kms and bettered it in the subsequent splits.