Ethiopian Birhanu Legese and Kenyan Cynthia Limo won the Airtel Delhi Half Marathon in the men's and women's categories respectively here on Sunday.
As the Africans sieged the overall title, Indian girls, especially, were impressive with Lalita Babbar leading the charge. Nitender Singh Rawat won the Indian men's title.
Legese clocked 59.20 minutes to claim the first spot while his compatriot Mosinet Geremew, who was third in 2014, finished a second later. Eritrea's Zersenay Tadese, the world record holder in half marathon, finished third in 59.24 minutes.
Kenyans Edwin Kiptoo (59.26 minutes) and Jonathan Maiyo (59.26 minutes) finished fourth and fifth respectively.
A leading pack of 10 runners went through 10km in 27:56 minutes, five men were still in contention with just 500 metres to go ahead of the finish line.
After an initial surge by Geremew, Legese overtook his compatriot with barely 100 metres remaining before breasting the ribbon.
It was the first time in the year that six athletes completed the half marathon inside 60 minutes.
Tadese said someone stepped on his shoe at the eight-km mark, forcing him to stop and put it back on and join the leading group of racers.
In the Indian category, Rawat finished the race in an hour and 41 seconds while Gopi T. was four seconds behind in second place. Mohammed Yunus claimed the third spot in an hour, four minutes and 46 seconds.
Overall, Rawat was five minutes and one second behind champion Legese, who bagged $27,000 for his performance. Rawat got richer by Rs.3,00,000.
In the women's category, Cynthia led a top-three finish for the Kenyans as she finished the race in an hour, eight minutes and 35 seconds. She was a fraction of a second ahead of Helah Kiprop, the 2015 World Championships' marathon silver medallist.
Gladys Chesir claimed the third spot in an hour, eight minutes and 36 seconds.
Genet Yalew, Tadelech Bekele and Netsanet Gudeta claimed the fourth, fifth and sixth places respectively.
Lalita, O.P. Jaisha and Sudha Singh grabbed the top three places respectively among Indian women runners. Overall, they were eighth, ninth and 10th respectively.
While Lalita completed the race in an hour, 10 minutes and 52 seconds, Jaisha was 42 seconds behind. Olympian Sudha finished in an hour, 11 minutes and 46 minutes.
All of them broke Kavita Raut's domestic course record of an hour, 17 minutes and 12 seconds in 2008.
Lalita, winner here in 2010 and 2011, said she took the lead at the 14-km mark and never looked back.
"Initially I was behind of Sudha and Jaisha. But at the 13 km mark it became an even field and threone I took the lead. We all got the timings that we had hoped for so I am very happy with my performance here," Lalita, who also got India's best timing in a 21km event, told reporters.
In addition to Rs.3,00,000 prize money, Lalita also won the course jackpot of Rs.1,50,000 for the course record.
A total of 34,015 runners participated in the event including 13,200 amateurs, over 70 international athletes, 19,015 enthusiasts participated in the Great Delhi Run while 400 brave hearts finished the race in the Champions with Disability category and 800 in the senior citizen category.
The running fiesta also saw a host of personalities from the field of sports, entertainment and politics throng the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium.
World and Olympic record holder in 5,000 and 10,000 metres, Ethiopian Kenenisa Bekele, who is the event ambassador, inspired the runners from the stand.
Bollywood actress Bipasha Basu, who was the 'Face of the event', and filmmaker Prakash Jha graced the event alongside Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia.
