Tiki Gelana of Ethiopia won today's London Olympic Marathon in dramatic style after she fell and crashed on the course at a water station. Gelana scraped her elbow but got back up and kept running to set an Olympic record of 2 hours, 23.07 minutes.
“I said, ‘Oh wow, I’m not going to finish,’ ” Gelana said. “I just concentrated on running. All of a sudden I made it.”
American medal hope-fulls Shalane Flanagan and Kara Goucher finished in 10th and 11th in a all out effort to win Olympic gold.
“I wanted to find out what I was capable of," Flanagan said. "We set these really big goals and we may or not hit them, but if I was hitting all my goals it would mean I’m not setting them high enough. I’m just going for it when I can.”
“The turns and the ups and downs were really, really hard,” Flanagan added.
“I don’t think Kara and I have dedicated ourselves more to anything in our life than for this race. It’s a little heartbreaking because I feel like there’s still more in us. We knew this course was going to be hard, but it beat us up for sure,” Flanagan said.
Priscah Jeptoo of Kenya finished second while Tatyana Petrova Arkhipova of Russia crossed the line in third place for the bronze medal.
Follow on twitter @everymantri or view latest videos onYouTube.