Robert Kiprono Cheruiyot, Winner of the 27th Commerzbank Frankfurt Marathon in 2:07:21 on his debut at the distance:I am very happy about my win and the time. I am happy that William Kiplagat and my training group persuaded me to come here. I was confident before the race about my form but I never thought that I could win. I ran a half marathon in Eldoret in 2007 in 63 minutes. I am still surprised about the victory but, of course, happy. I think I broke away from my competitors at 35 k. I didn’t have a plan before that and at 35 k I tried to move and do my best. Of course I want to come back next year and try to defend my title. My hometown is close to Kericho in Kenya. My mother is a farmer (my father is dead), but my only job is running. I was born on August 10, 1988.My personal best for 10 k on the road is at 30:33 or 30:34. I have never done cross country races, have done a few track races but really I am a road runner.
Sabrina Mockenhaupt, Winner of the 27th Commerzbank Frankfurt Marathon in 2:26:22:
I still can’t take it in, somehow I can only think of the pain. But I am very happy! I didn’t have a particular tactic going into the race. I was thinking about it, but everybody said something different about what I should do. It was a very uneven pace in the beginning. It took me a long time to find my rhythm. The pain came later than in Cologne, where I made my debut, but around four kilometres before the finish it started to get hard. It was also quite windy at some points. Nearer the finish I started getting a little nervous, because I could feel that I wouldn’t be able to push if somebody attacked from behind.
Now I can just relax. After my holidays I have to start to run more kilometres, as I feel that have much more potential when I increase my kilometres. Next year I would be happy to be among the marathon team, but I also want to stay on the track with the 10.000 metres, as I haven’t reached my full potential there either.