Kenya’s Paul Eyanae has cruised to stunning victory in the Perth Running Festival marathon on Sunday, crossing the line more almost seven minutes ahead of his nearest rival. Eyanae led for the entire race, holding his position and creating more of a gap as the race went on. He ran into the Optus Stadium finish in a time of 2hrs 16min 43sec.
Last year’s winner Samuel Ekutan (2:23:37) was next up, followed by WA’s Tim Hewitt (2:28:05). Fridah Too took out the women’s marathon in 2hrs 42min 13sec. WA running power couple Matt Ramsden and Lauren Hyde-Cooling fell narrowly short of their goal of winning both the men’s and women’s half-marathon categories.
Ramsden defended his crown in a time of 1hr 5min 25sec, while Hyde-Cooling finished fourth in the women’s, behind winner Kate Barker (01:18:32). Dan Canala (32:10) took out the Streamer 10km in a thrilling finish against Luke Bate (32:15), while Max Shervington was first past the post in the Burswood Park 4km dash. The Perth Running Festival is a major fundraiser for Telethon with $200,000 raised and was broadcast on Australia’s fastest-growing community sports streaming platform, Streamer.
Paul Nash of events partner Corporate Sports Australia said it was the fastest growing mass participation run in Australia. “This year we closed off registrations at 14,000 participants with a further 4416 participants on the marathon wait list and another 2586 participants on the half marathon wait list,” Nash said “We h.