The winners of Sunday’s Buffalo Marathon were a long way from home.

The men’s and women’s champion were from Ethiopia in the annual race held throughout the city. Habtamu Bekele won the men’s division in 2 hours, 26 minutes and 5 seconds. Meserte Kotu took the women’s title in a course-record time of 2:43:08; the old mark was 2:44:57 set by Beth Anne DeCiantis in 1991.

Kotu was far too good for the field, taking the victory by more than 10 minutes over defending champion Jessica Allen. Kotu has a personal best of 2:30:02, so she figured to be a top contender Sunday.

Kotu had the most profitable day of any of the participants, earning $2,000 for the victory and $1,000 for the course record for a total of $3,000.

Bekele, who runs out of Marietta, Georgia, won by a a relatively comfortable 16 seconds. Jason Lokwatom, a Kenyan running out of Troy, Ohio, was second at 2:26:21.

Bekele has raced throughout the world. He ran the 26-mile, 385-yard distance in an impressive 2:10:43 during the 2003 Rome marathon.

For more details on the race, see Monday’s editions of The Buffalo News.

By Budd Bailey – The Buffalo News