Marathon at worlds takes weird twists: a false start, a near wrong turn and, finally, a photo finish

By Eddie Pells

They ran for more than two hours and needed a photo finish to determine the winner.

Alphonce Simbu of Tanzania edged out Amanal Petros in a wild men’s marathon at world championships Monday.

It was a 26.2-mile (42.195-kilometer) race through the streets of Tokyo that began with a false start and ended with a sprint down the homestretch of the track — but only after Simbu nearly missed the turn into the stadium.

“I have never seen something like this in a marathon,” said Petros, after getting nudged out despite lunging and tumbling over the finish line. “It’s like the 100 meters.”

Closer, in fact.

The difference in the men’s marathon was 0.03 seconds.

The differences in the men’s and women’s 100-meter races Sunday night: .05 and .15 seconds.

It marked the second straight day a marathon was decided with an all-out sprint to the line. The