Aussie nabs Olympic marathon qualifier

A second-place finish has come with the added bonus of an Olympic qualifying time for Australia's Milly Clark at the Gold Coast marathon.

Milly Clark after finishing the marathon at the Rio Olympics.

Milly Clark says a new PB and an Olympic qualifier made the Gold Marathon the perfect race. (AAP)

A strong finish has secured Australia's Milly Clark second place and an Olympic qualifying time at the Gold Coast marathon.

Tasmania's Clark came home in two hours, 28 minutes and eight seconds in Sunday's race to post a new personal best and go well under the Tokyo 2020 Olympic qualifying mark of 2:29:30.

Her blistering finish almost ended with her running down Rodah Jepkorir but the Kenyan hung on to win in 2:27:56 with Eritrea's Nazret Weldu third in 2:28:57.

Despite narrowly missing out on the win, Clark ticked all the boxes she had set herself and was thrilled with the result.

"I had a lot of fun," she said.

"There wasn't a moment that I wasn't loving it.

"Honestly it was perfect. Everything went exactly the way I wanted it to go. I just wanted to hopefully run a PB and finish in the top three and I did both so I'm super stoked."

In the men's race, Japan's Yuta Shitara set a new race record of 2:07:50 to become the eighth Japanese winner in the 41-year history of the event.

Shitara came home ahead of Kenyan Barnabus Kiptum and New Zealand's Zane Robertson.

Hong Kong marathon winner Kiptum set a personal best of 2:08:02 while Robertson capped off his marathon debut with a 2:08:19 to secure a New Zealand record.

There was agony for best-placed Australian Liam Adams who finished sixth in 2:11:36.

The result will be bittersweet for the Victorian with his new PB just six seconds outside the Olympic qualifying mark.


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Source: AAP

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Aussie nabs Olympic marathon qualifier | SBS News