New event in the Czech Republic sees a batch of good times and Olympic qualifying marks as Team Birell emerge winners

Kenyan duo Purity Rionoripo and Benson Kipruto were the first runners across the line at the inaugural Battle of the Teams marathon event in Prague on Sunday (May 30) with the Birell squad winning the team contest.

Racing in bright sunshine after the race had started at 6.30am local time on Charles Bridge, Kipruto clocked 2:10:16 after surging away in the final 5km to beat fellow Kenyan Dickson Chumba as the runners finished in the city’s old City Square.

Rionoripo took the women’s win in 2:20:14 with Guteni Shone of Ethiopia second in 2:21:46.

Eva Vrabcova Nyvltova of the Czech Republic was sixth in 2:27:07, just over half a minute outside her national record and inside the qualifying mark for Tokyo.

“I’m back,” she told the organisers. “I don’t know what to say. I didn’t expect this at all, so I’m very happy. I didn’t want to believe it was happening until I had finished.”

The scoring format, with six runners per team to count, saw times converted to points, but this ensured that the last finishers for each team could change the team positions dramatically.

Despite her individual victory and points contribution to her Volkswagen team, Rionoripo could not stop Team Birell from taking the team title.

Ultimately it was a couple of personal bests by team members that ensured Team Birell’s winning margin, their squad’s times converting to 7152 points over Team Volkswagen’s 6887.

Team Mattoni were third with 6845, with Team Skupina CEZ scoring 6765.