Disdery Hombo & Tatyana Perepelkina win the 2008 Taipei International Express Marathon

The 13th Taipei International Express Marathon, sponsored mainly by Carrefour for the second time since 2007, raced on Hsichih-Wugu Elevated Viaduct of Taiwan National Highway No. 1 this Sunday (March 23). Although it rained until the start of the marathon and half-marathon classes, the race finished properly. Despite the improved weather, the gradient near the Hsichih stop of Hsichih-Wugu Elevated Viaduct provided a major challenge to the runners' physical strength.

The race's organizer, the Chinese Taipei Road Running Association, invited several world-class marathon runners based on their prior performances in several international marathons. However, because of political instability in Africa, there were only four African runners participating in this race.

Finally, Disdery Hombo from Kenya and Tatyana Perepelkina (in Russian: Татьяна Перепёлкина) from Russia were, respectively, the men's and women's champions of the marathon (42K) class with 2H21m27s and 2H49m15s.

After this race, when Wikinews Journalist Rico Shen briefly interviewed Hombo, Hombo expressed his satisfaction with this race and Taiwan's image, as well as his eagerness to try out for future marathon races, especially the ING Taipei Marathon this December.

Key Results

Class 10K Running Half-Marathon (21K) Marathon (42K) Men's Group Wen-chien Wu(32m59s) Chin-ping Ho(1H8m43s) Disdery Hombo(2H21m27s) Women's Group Chien-he Hsieh(37m33s) Yu-fang Hsu(1H21m26s) Tatyana Perepelkina(2H49m15s)