Alphonce Felix Simbu snatched gold in the first photo finish at a major championship marathon on Monday, edging out German Amanal Petros in a dramatic race to the line to give Tanzania its maiden world title.
The photo finish showed the 42.195km race was decided by 3 hundredths of a second as Simbu surged past the diving Petros at the line, closer than the 0.05-second gap between the gold and silver medallists in the mens 100m final, on Sunday.
Simbu and Petros were given the same time of two hours, nine minutes and 48 seconds, the German taking the silver despite heading the field as the leaders entered Tokyos National Stadium. Italian Iliass Aouani took the bronze in 2:09.53.
