Kenyan Runner Wins Fourth Boston Marathon

Defending champion Robert Cheruiyot of Kenya won his fourth Boston Marathon in six years on Monday, while Ethiopia's Dire Tune took the women's crown in a dramatic finish.

Cheruiyot, the first Kenyan man to win four Boston Marathons after victories in 2003, 2006 and 2007, controlled the pace through the hilly Boston suburbs and was followed in second place by Abderrahime Bouramdane of Morocco.

The 29-year-old Kenyan put distance between himself and a thinning pack of runners at about one-and-a-half hours into the race but slowed in the final stretch to miss by 32 seconds his own 2006 course record.

The 112th Boston Marathon got started Monday with defending champion Robert Cheruiyot and a field of more than 25,000 runners leaving the starting line in Hopkinton for the 26.2-mile run to Copley Square.

Cheruiyot was looking for his fourth Boston win. Lidiya Grigoryeva, last year's women's winner, was also trying for a repeat.

The race comes a day after the U.S. Olympic women's trials featured the top American runners fighting for a berth in the Beijing Game. Deena Kastor, Magdalena Lewy Boulet and Blake Russell finished in the top three to earn a chance to run in the Olympics. They served as grand marshals for Monday's race.

The Boston Marathon is an annual marathon sporting event hosted by the city of Boston, Massachusetts, on Patriots' Day, the third Monday of April. Begun in 1897 and inspired by the success of the first modern-day marathon competition in the 1896 Summer Olympics, the Boston Marathon is the world's oldest annual marathon and ranks as one of the world's most prestigious road racing events. The marathon is one of five members of the World Marathon Majors.

Today, the Boston Athletic Association (B.A.A.) manages this event. Amateur and professional runners from all over the world compete in the Boston Marathon each year, braving the hilly New England terrain and unpredictable, sometimes brutal weather to take part in the race.

The event attracts an average of about 20,000 registered participants each year. In the 100th running of the Boston Marathon in 1996, the number of participants reached 38,000. While there are cash prizes awarded to the winners of the marathon, most of the runners take part in the historical marathon just for the joy of participating in such a prestigious race.