01/10/00: Gezahgne Abera won the men's marathon today to cap a glorious Sydney Games for Ethiopia and draw a curtain down on the sporting action at the Millennium Olympics.

Kenya's Eric Wainaina took the silver and Abera's Ethiopian team-mate Tesfaye Tola claimed the bronze.

Abera follows in the footsteps of his legendary compatriot Abebe Bikila, who won the Rome marathon barefoot in 1960 and defended the title in Tokyo four years later. Mamo Wolde also won marathon gold for Ethiopia in 1968 at Mexico City.

It also completed a tremendous Sydney Games for Ethiopia after gold-medal performances from Haile Gebrselassie, Million Wolde and Derartu Tulu in distance events.

Abera finished in 2hr 10min 11sec while Wainaina, who improved on his bronze in Atlanta four years ago, clocked 2:10:31. Tola posted 2:11:10.

Beginning at 4pm local time, in the hottest part of the day, 102 starters also had to contend with a strong, swirling wind as well as a notoriously tough course which has five stamina-sapping hills in the last 10km.

So it was a cautious lead pack which allowed Botswana's Tiyapo Maso to build a 1min 24sec lead by the 10km marker in Centennial Park.

As a runner with a modest 2hr 17min best, the collective wisdom of the pack was that Maso would surely come back to them before too long.

Maso was duly caught and passed by the time the pack climbed up to the Anzac Bridge, the dozen-strong lead pack including outgoing champion Josiah Thugwane of South Africa, Abdelkadir El Mouaziz of Morocco and Wainaina.

The Ethiopians were also prominent, doing much of the work at the front of the group as the race headed into its crucial final phase.

Then there were three. Into the hilly last 10km, Wainaina kept asking the questions, surging up the hills and reducing the lead group to himself and the Ethiopian pair.

But he could not break Abera, last year's winner of the prestigious Fukuoka race in Japan, and the 22-year-old broke away over the final 5km to win with something to spare.-AFP