Africans enjoy marathon clean sweep

Gezahgne Abera cools down after victory

Ethiopian Gezahgne Abera pulled away in the final three miles to win the gold medal in the men's marathon as African athletes filled the three medal positions.

Abera finished in a time of two hours, 10 minutes and 11 seconds to beat Kenya's Eric Wainaina by 20 seconds, with another Ethiopian Tesfaye Tola in third.

Britain's Jon Brown produced a strong run to stay with the leading trio for almost 20 miles, before Abera upped the pace.

Running the distance for the first time since the Flora London Marathon in April 1999, Brown was naturally delighted with his performance.

"Everything went very right for me today," Brown said.

"It is probably the first marathon I ran where the competition was on and I am playing the field.

"I felt very comfortable. My plan was to get to 25 kilometres in as best possible shape as I could."

And despite struggling at one point in the race, Brown says he will take plenty of confidence from his Olympic performance.

"I went through a bit of a bad patch - I got a bit of a stitch. But I was quite confident and at the end I was very strong.

"I actually felt good. Finally now I feel that I am ready to be a marathon runner."