Athletics: Cilia Seventeenth At Rome Marathon

From Paul Grech

Thanks to a time of 2 hours 27 minutes and 47 seconds, Maltese athlete Charles Cilia finished in a remarkable seventeenth position at the tenth edition of the Rome Marathon that was held last Sunday. Set in the picturesque roads of the eternal city, Cilia started cautiously but finished strongly to close the gap with the leading group of athletes.

"It was a wonderful experience," he said upon returning to Malta. "The weather was perfect and the panorama was fantastic."

"I'm extremely happy with the result. At the beginning I suffered a bout of cramps which got me worried so I started cautiously. Other than that, part of the route was over cobblestone paving which made it difficult for me and my legs were hurting at every impact with the road. In fact, as soon as we got on to tarmac, I could run more easily and as such managed to catch up with those ahead of me."

Cilia normally tends to favour the half-marathon distance over which he has won the past three editions of the Malta Half Marathon with this year's success coming thanks to a new personal best of 1.08.42. It was after that victory that he had expressed his desire to test himself against the full-fledged distance, something that he did in such emphatic style for the first time in his career in Rome.

Already he's looking at other possible venues. "Rome was the first full marathon that I ran but it certainly won't be the last. In fact I'm already looking at other possible marathons, particularly the New York Marathon. I'm very confident that I'll manage to get a better result."

Local runner Ruggero Pertile managed to overcome fellow Italian Migidio Bourifa with a time of 2.09.13 that is likely to book him a place in the Italian squad for next summer's Olympics. The leading duo had to fend off the habitual Kenyan challenge that came in the form of Samuel Chemweno Kemboi. It was the second time in ten editions of the Rome Marathon that an Italian emerged as the winner after Stefano Baldini's success in 1998.

The women's category also saw an Italian crossing the finishing line first when Ornella Ferrari registered a personal best of 2.27.49 which is also the sixth overall time in the history of Italian athletics.

This year's edition of the Rome Marathon was the largest ever with over 7,640 athletes crossing the finishing line out of the 8,621 that took off. It beats the previous Italian best of 6,202 athletes set in 2002 at the same event.