A morning of sensational marathon running in Chicago yesterday and the news was big all through. A world record for Khalid Khannouchi in the men's race, an extraordinary sprint finish in the women's race. A first-ever marathon defeat for Catherina McKiernan, who was forced to drop out in the closing stages having experienced stomach problems from the mid-point onwards.

On a characteristically chilly Chicago morning, the winds sweeping off the lake were light and the course promised fast times. McKiernan began steadily, but came undone through the second half of the race.

"I felt competitive until 15 miles maybe and got stomach cramps, but got through that. The last six miles or so was just a matter of surviving and getting to the finish. I'm not sure what caused the cramps. I was taking on carbohydrates and it was fairly cold."

McKiernan had suffered cramps in the London Marathon last year and ran through them. Yesterday's setback was more an aggregate of problems.

"The cramps weren't too bad, I had them in London, but maybe because I missed some time in training I hadn't enough miles in my legs. Maybe it was a combination of everything added up to me having a bad day today. It went through my head to drop out, but there was no way. I was able to shuffle along for the last couple of miles."

She finished 12th in a time of 2:35:31, over 10 minutes behind the winner. However there was solace in that she had put down 26 miles without a recurrence of the Achilles' tendon injury which stole the first half of her year.

McKiernan was part of a lead group of a dozen or so for the first half of the race, but started to struggle and experience stomach pains having passed through the 15-mile mark with the group which included Elana Mayer, Joyce Chepchumba, and Margaret Okayo.

She was forced to take pit-stops twice over the next few miles and thereafter the race was a battle to recover lost ground. Chepchumba, recovering from a fall early in the race, had established a dominant rhythm. Coming through 20 miles, McKiernan was 10th and one minute and 44 seconds off the lead. By the 22 miles mark, after her second stop, that margin had stretched to almost four minutes.

The next step for McKiernan is not clear yet. Asked if she wanted to run a spring marathon in preparation for Sydney, she was non-committal.

"Not after how I felt today," she smiled. "I'm sure after a couple of days I'll be mad to get back. It's a tough game and you know that a winning streak will always come to an end."

The women's race, despite being run in a modest time, finished sensationally. Margaret Okayo, a 23-year-old Kenyan making her debut marathon appearance, caught Chepchumba with a mile to go in an intriguing battle.

The race finished on a slight uphill and Chepchumba, a good finisher, pulled away again by about five metres. But she couldn't shake Okayo completely. They came down to the finish matching stride for stride, watching each other hawkishly. With 100 metres left there wasn't more than half a metre between them, but Chepchumba's experience just about saw her home to win her second successive Chicago Marathon in a time of 2:25.59.

The win established Chepchumba firmly among the favourites for Sydney next year. In nine marathons, she has four wins, two seconds places, two thirds and one fourth place.

"I was with the group today and then I fell down and I thought I couldn't get up, but I came back. It was very hard to maintain after that but I had to try and slowly I got back and kept up. I saw Margaret and she was strong. My knee was hurting but when I saw her, it kept me going."

In the men's race, Khalid Khannouchi, a Moroccan who is hoping to become an American citizen in time for the Sydney Olympics, did his cause no harm with his third Chicago win in a row, achieving an astonishing world record time into the bargain.

"It was more about winning the race than going for the record," he said.

"I decided before the race not to take any chances and I went with three miles to go. All I concentrated on was staying relaxed and believing I could win. When Tanui went with eight miles to go he took a chance. I decided to stay relaxed and not go with him."

Khannouchi chased down a gap which was 26 seconds at one point and caught Tanui with a couple of miles to go. The pair disappeared shoulder to shoulder into a 300 yard city tunnel and when they emerged, Khannouchi was 25 yards ahead and running at an extraordinary pace.

He finished in a world record 2:05:42, comfortably beating the old record of Ronaldo de Costa set in Berlin over a year ago. De Costa was third yesterday. As a result of the pace, sponsors wound up paying out a record amount of prize money for a marathon, handing out over $400,000 in prize and bonus money.

Moses Tanui, who finished second, had stated after the Boston Marathon earlier this year that he was coming to Chicago to run fast, but lost momentum when he got confused by the distance marker signs, which in Chicago are indicated only in miles.

"I was on my own pace. Khannouchi is a good athlete, but I confused the miles and kilometres. I didn't know where I was at, I thought I was at 35 kilometres and I was only 30 kilometres. Still far behind what I thought. I only realised I had made that mistake after I passed the 35 kilometre mark. I just thought I had to go and finish the race. This is an international race though, they should have kilometre signs."

The new world record marks the latest in an incredible series of runs over the past 12 months. As of early 1988, the record of Ethiopian Belayneh Densamo (2:06:50) had stood for 10 years. In the last year that mark has been broken by four different runners.

"Two years ago, if you ran 2:09 in a race you were the big Daddy, they picked you up in a limo every time," said US runner Todd Williams. "Now you get a taxi, walk to the course and carry your stuff. It's incredible. These guys are going to be sprinting for 26 miles using spikes in the next couple of years."

Asked about drugs, "Nobody will step up to the plate and talk openly," said Williams. "In bars and backrooms, it's talk about this guy and that. To me it's irrelevant. Until we have blood testing and we can catch them, well people will get praised and all we can say is that there are clean runners there who are losing out and great runners who will be denied the credit.

"If they get the tests and a few guys are found guilty, I want to meet them in a back alley and kick hell out of them. My whole life is running. If I found out it would be a punch in the gut. It really would."