Kenya's Frederick Cherono today beat off competition from more than 8,000 runners to win the Adidas Dublin's City Marathon.
Supporters from across the world gathered at the finish line in Merrion Square to see the 23-year-old complete just the third marathon of his life.
The women's record for the course was broken by 29-year-old Russian Lidia Vassilevskaia, with female runners-up including Kenyans, Poles and Britons.
Chereno achieved his personal best of 2:14:23 in today's event."I felt strong all the way and started picking them off at 19 or 20 miles," he said. "I was so happy, it was not very difficult. This is my fastest marathon now."
Runners-up in the men's competition were Kenyan Luka Cherono in second place and last year's winner South African Zacharia Mpolokeng came third. Mpolokeng said he found the competition much faster last year.
"It was so slow this year," he said. "We started to keep up the pace after 16 miles, but the Kenyan winner was very strong."
He said he planned to compete in the Dublin marathon for the next four years.
Lidia Vassilevskaia said she was disappointed at not beating her personal best of 2 hrs 29 mins, but was pleased at shattering the women's record with her time of 2 hrs 32 mins and 56 secs.
She was followed by Kenyan Anne Jelegat Kibor in second place and Pole Grazyna Syrek in third position. Both winners of the men's and women's races take home 15,000.
The first Irish runner to cross the finish line was Gary Crossan, who came in 10th with a time of 2:20:16, while Ann Lennon was the first Irish woman home was 2:46:18.
Winner of the wheelchair race was Scotland's Kenny Herriot, who crossed the line in 1:52:48.
Race director Jim Aughney said people from 52 countries took part in the event - making it Dublin's most multi-cultured marathon yet.