Tokyo (dpa) – Marathon runner Amanal Petros has won the silver medal at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo. In sweltering conditions, the 30-year-old was only beaten in a thrilling sprint finish by Alphonce Simbu of Tanzania.
Petros completed the prestigious 42.195-kilometre course in 2:09:48. Having fled from Africa to Germany in 2012, Petros has now secured only the second German men’s marathon medal in the history of the World Championships. The first came in 1983, when double Olympic champion Waldemar Cierpinski won bronze for East Germany in Helsinki.
After long jumper Malaika Mihambo’s silver on Sunday, Petros’s triumph is already the second medal for the German Athletics Federation in Japan. At the last World Championships in Budapest two years ago, the German team failed to win a single medal.
