Jerusalem Marathon ends in confusion

Jerusalem's first-ever marathon ended in confusion on Friday, with a Kenyan runner, said to have taken a wrong turn, crossing the finish line for the half-marathon and still winning. But all was judged to have turned out well, and correctly, in the end.

 Organisers said Raymond Kipkoechh, 34, was electronically logged as having run the qualifying distance in the shortest time despite not having crossed the official line for his event. He ran the 42.2 kilometre endurance event in 2 hours 26:44 minutes. Steve Brown, a New Zealand tourist who saw the incident, said the confusion occurred several hundred metres before the finish line when the race outriders were directing the runners into separate lanes -- one heading to the marathon finish line, and the other to the half-marathon finish In second place, 11 seconds behind him, was Mutai Kopkorir, 24, and coming third, with a time of 2:27:19, was Kiman Njorage, 33, both of them also Kenyans, About 10,000 participants took part in Fridays marathon.