Tokyo Marathon: Birhu Legenes, Lonah Chemtai win top positions amid empty streets

Ethiopia's Birhnu Legese was declared the winner of the Tokyo Marathon. Spectators witnessed empty streets and no public runners due to the fear of coronavirus. 

Biranu Legese has won Tokyo Marathon second time in a row after completing the race in two hours four minutes and 15 seconds.

The race was restricted to few elite marathon runners and the usual ritual of including 30,000 amateur runners was excluded due to the virus fears. 

Legese donned the much-discussed carbon plated Nike shoes. He missed out on Wilson Kipsang's record of 2:03:58, which was set in 2017.

Lonah Korlima Chemtai Salpeter from Israel broke the women's record after clocking 2:17:45, she broke Sarah Chepchirchir's record of 2:19:47 from the 2017 race. 

The race missed many elite marathon runners after they refused to travel to Japan amidst coronavirus outbreak.  The virus has caused various disruptions in sporting events across the globe. 

Tokyo is set to host the Olympics in July, the mega event has cancellation fears due to the globally contagious coronavirus. 

Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Saturday that the country was still planning to go ahead with hosting the Olympics in Tokyo in July and August despite the coronavirus outbreak.

The death toll from the global coronavirus outbreak has surged to over 3,000 across the world. And at the moment close to 88,000 people are infected globally. Mainland China has reported 42 new deaths all fatalities are from the virus epicentre Hubei province.

South Korea has confirmed 586 new cases of Covid-19 in the last 24 hours. This brings the infected toll to a whopping 3,700 cases.