In her debut in the third leg of the Standard Chartered Bank’s Greatest Race on Earth, Nguyen Thi Dong ran well to take second place in the South Asia group.

Nguyen Thi Dong (right) and Nghiem Xuan Chung pose in front of the GROE’s poster before leaving for Mumbai. Dong finished second in the South Asia group while Chung took fourth place.

The race was held in Mumbai. It was the city’s first international sports event since the militant attacks last November.

Almost 35,000 people participated in five separate events in the run through the streets of Mumbai, taking them past two of the three landmarks where Islamic gunmen killed 179 people.

Dong finished the 42km race in 3 hours, 7 minutes and 21 seconds, about two minutes after Indonesian Erni Ulatningsih. Dong was two minutes ahead of Lakmini Anuradhi Bogawahatta from Sri Lanka.

The runner completed her promise to break her own record of 3:12.00 that she set at the national championships in 2007.

Dong who was Viet Nam’s representative in the third leg of the US$1 million marathon, helped her country jump from fourth to third place in regional ranking with a cumulative time of 9:52.25. As marathons are not Viet Nam’s strong point, coaches hoped that the Greatest Race on Earth (GROE) would be a good chance for athletes to practise ahead of the 25th Southeast Asian (SEA) Games this December in Laos.

It was also a chance for them to test the ability of Thai runners who are often involved in disputes with Viet Nam in track and field events.

Dong’s result was enough to push Viet Nam team above Thailand in the overall ranking - with a time gap of about five minutes.

Ethiopia’s Haile Kebebush won the women’s overall race in a time of 2:34.08 with compatriot Marta Marcos second and Kenya’s Irene Mogaka third.

On the men’s side, Dong’s team mate Nghiem Xuan Chung also ran better than expected with a time of 2:39.22 to finish fourth, jumping two steps up, in the regional group.

The result was his personal best time, beating the previous one by more than four minutes as he did at the national championship in 2007.

Kenneth Mugara led a Kenyan sweep in the men’s event after clocking a course record time of 2:11.51 ahead of David Tarus, second, and John Kelai, winner of the previous two races, third.

The winning team is the one with the quickest cumulative time. The series will conclude with the final leg in Hong Kong on February 8.

Thirty six nations are taking part in the 2008-09 series [23 men’s and 13 women’s teams].

The challenges are split into three regions – Africa, South Asia and North East Asia, and Rest of the World.

(Source: VNS)