Nine Men Broke the Championship Record in Birmingham, and Amanal Petros Gets His Gold.

Nine men ran faster than the championship record in the European Championships men’s marathon in Birmingham on Sunday, and the quickest of them, Amanal Petros of Germany, took the gold medal in 2:09:11.

The record he beat, 2:09:51, had belonged to Belgium’s Koen Naert since Berlin in 2018. Pietro Riva of Italy took silver in 2:09:18, seven seconds behind, and Israel’s Gashau Ayale bronze in 2:09:21. Six more men finished between 2:09:24 and 2:09:47. Richard Ringer, the German who won this title in Munich four years ago, was 10th in 2:10:05, 14 seconds outside the old record.

Petros, 31, had never won a major championship. He took world silver in Tokyo last September in 2:09:48, credited with the same time as Tanzania’s Alphonce Simbu in the closest finish the event has produced. Birmingham was 37 seconds quicker.

The lead group held a 12-second gap on the field at 10K, but the race came back together, and 22 men were in front by 15K, with Simon Boch of Germany and Britain’s Mahamed Mahamed leading through halfway. Petros moved up soon afterward and broke clear just past 25K, first by 50 meters and eventually by close to a minute. He slowed sharply at the end, covering the final 2.195K in 7:18, and still won by seven seconds. “I am someone who learns from my mistakes,” he said in comments distributed by European Athletics. “I just chose one of the best tactics.”

He won it 5:08 slower than his own German record, the 2:04:03 he ran in Valencia in December. Samuel Fitwi Sibhatu had the fastest time in the field this year, 2:04:45 from Hamburg, and finished ninth. A championship marathon offers no pacemakers, eight laps of a 5K city-center loop, and medals rather than time bonuses at the finish. It compresses a field around whoever races best on the day, although Birmingham did pay for fast marks, €50,000 (about $57,700) for the best scoring performance in each of five event groups.

Vainio Wins by the Biggest Margin the Event Has Seen

The women’s race, run over the same laps 40 minutes earlier, was settled the other way. Alisa Vainio led from the gun and won by 4:55, the largest margin in the history of the European women’s marathon. The previous biggest was Rosa Mota’s 4:14 in 1986.

The Finn passed halfway in 1:10:40, already more than three minutes clear, and finished in 2:22:26, which took 2:48 off Christelle Daunay’s 2014 record. Her second half took 1:11:46, a positive split of 66 seconds with nobody in sight. Germany’s Fabienne Königstein was the only runner who tried to go with her; she was caught by the chase group and dropped out inside the last 6K. “I just ran from the start and felt so strong all the way,” Vainio said, in comments distributed by European Athletics. “It was pretty easy but my left leg got sore in the last lap.”

Lili Anna Vindics-Tóth of Hungary was second in 2:27:21, seven seconds quicker than she had ever run, and Abbie Donnelly held off Hungary’s Nóra Szabó by six seconds for bronze in 2:27:33. Donnelly is the first British woman to win an individual medal in the event, which was added to the program in 1982; the best British finish before Sunday was Kathy Binns, ninth in Athens that year. It was Donnelly’s third marathon. Second through 10th were covered by 62 seconds.

Birmingham was Vainio’s sixth marathon in 11 months and her fourth inside 2:23, a run that includes a Finnish and Nordic record of 2:20:48 in Valencia in December.