by Shane Saroya – EM TV, Port Moresby
The Final leg of the Men’s and women’s half marathon started early in the morning today at the BSP Stadium.
The race ran along the Kumul Avenue to Somare Circuit then UPNG main campus to the Games Village and back to BSP Stadium in a long and enduring 21.1km race.
In the men’s event, Kupsy Besamo was determined to win gold for PNG after a tireless effort in the previous men’s 5,000m race, which saw Besamo manage to come third place.
Besamo paced his running time behind Tahiti’s Georges Richmond and Fiji’s Avikash Lal who led the pack through almost half of the race course.
Lal was overtaken in the final leg of the race by Richmond, but it wasn’t long when Besamo through sheer determination, made his move to take out Richmond and race to the finish line.
Richmond finished second and Lal coming in third place to a well-deserved bronze medal and 5000m men’s gold medallist Rosefelo Siosi came fourth and Sapolai Yao and Skene Kiage finished fifth and ninth respectively.
In the women’s event, the Solomon Islander and Pacific Games 10,000m women’s champion, Kikini Sharon Firisua ran her heart out in a thrilling fashion and maintained her lead from the start to the finish line, to pocket yet again another gold medal.
Miriam Goye, backing-up from her 10,000m Silver medal win with a strong run to the finishing line, only to settle with a bronze.
These concluded the final Athletics events for this year’s Pacific Games.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=m9sTkLJOm54%3Ffeature%3Doembed%26wmode%3Dopaque%26showinfo%3D0%26showsearch%3D0%26rel%3D0
