As Adriana Pirtea began enjoying her debut marathon victory, she made the greatest rookie mistake.
She celebrated before the finish line.
Certain that she was cruising toward victory Sunday, the Romanian high-fived fans at the final turn approaching the finish line of the LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon and waved to the crowd with about 70 yards to go in the 26.2-mile journey.
None of them bothered to tell her to stop partying and start sprinting.
Ethiopian Berhane Adere, the defending champion, recorded one of the marathon’s greatest comebacks, charging from 30 seconds behind to catch Pirtea with 50 yards to go and surpass her at the finish in 2 hours 33 minutes 49 seconds.
Despite having fuel in her tank, Pirtea noticed Adere’s presence too late and finished three seconds behind.
“I would have pushed harder,” said Pirtea, had she known of the narrowing gap.
Adere celebrated in a different way, but at the right time. She collapsed in exhaustion after the finish line but was quickly on her feet again.
Kate O’Neill finished third in 2:36:15, becoming the top American female since Deena Kastor in 2005.
Adere called on her track experience and implemented wise strategy to overtake an unsuspecting Pirtea.
Adere controlled the pace for much of the day, despite turning to Pirtea several times and indicating she should take a turn in the lead. Pirtea finally did, but not in the way Adere wanted.
Pirtea blasted ahead of Adere after 22 miles and took a vast lead, so much that she took time to look over her shoulder only once.
“I looked back once, and maybe it was 100 meters,” Pirtea said of her lead. “I see she’s not coming at that moment.”
Adere said she simply lost energy for a few miles, but she kept a close watch on Pirtea and noticed her opponent was easing up around 40 kilometers. That was her time to make a move.
Adere ran in the far right lane out of Pirtea’s line of vision and even bypassed the finish-line tape that had been positioned in front of the route Pirtea was running.
“I pushed and I knew [I could pass her],” said Adere, who speaks limited English.
Adere, a former Olympian in the 10,000 meters, still performs track workouts once a week.
They paid off.
Adere said she switched into a mental track mode to chase down Pirtea for the dramatic finish.
She is the first female back-to-back winner since Catherine Ndereba repeated in 2001.
Even a second-place finish surpassed Pirtea’s expectations.
Her previous best was 10th place in the 2005 IAAF World Championship half-marathon. She won the 5,000- and 10,000-meter titles at the Romanian national championship this summer.
But a marathon?
Pirtea was just excited to compete with so many elite runners. Still, she felt the tinge of disappointment after coming so close.
“I didn’t know what to feel,” said Pirtea, who graduated from Texas-El Paso in 2005. “When I realized what actually happened, I had tears in my eyes. It’s hard to [lose] like that.”
Heat played a major role as the temperature hit a record-high 88 degrees. The winning women’s time was the slowest since 1992.
While cooling off was probably tops on Adere’s list, she had an open book for her celebration plans.
“I will do everything,” she said.
