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Africans Win At Boston Marathon

The scene at the start of the elite women's division of the Boston Marathon on Monday.
Dominick Reuter
/
Reuters /Landov
The scene at the start of the elite women's division of the Boston Marathon on Monday.

Ethiopian runner Lelisa Desisa won the men's division at this year's Boston Marathon on Monday, finishing the 26.2 miles in 2 hours, 10 minutes and 22 seconds. It's the first win at Boston for the 23-year-old.

Update at 4:50 p.m. ET: After we published our post on the race's results, two explosions at the Boston Marathon brought deadly violence and chaos to the area near the finish line. We're following that story here. Our original post continues:

Hitting the tape at 2 hours, 26 minutes and 25 seconds, Kenya's Rita Jeptoo won the women's side of the race. It was her second win in Boston. In 2006, Jeptoo finished No. 1 in a time of 2:23:38.

Americans finished fourth in both the men's and women's divisions — Jason Hartmann among the men; Shalane Flanagan among the women.

Earlier in the day, Japan's Hiroyuki Yamamota won the men's wheelchair race. American Tatyana McFadden won the women's wheelchair race.

Meanwhile, our friends at WBUR's Only A Game explain where the olive wreaths that the winners wear come from. And they've reviewed Boston legend Bill Rodgers's new book, Marathon Man.

The Boston Marathon was first run in 1897. It's the "world's oldest annual marathon and one of the world's most prestigious road races," as organizers say. The top finishers were competing for more than $800,000 in prize money.

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Mark Memmott is NPR's supervising senior editor for Standards & Practices. In that role, he's a resource for NPR's journalists – helping them raise the right questions as they do their work and uphold the organization's standards.