Kenya's Josephat Kiprono braved the cold weather and cobble stones of the Italian capital to produce an outstanding winning run that gave credibility to the Rome Millennium Marathon on Saturday.

The event had been dismissed by many in the sport as an expensive gimmick, a personal flight of fancy by the International Amateur Athletic Federation's late president Primo Nebiolo, but Kiprono clipped more than a minute from the course record with his time of two hours eight minutes 27 seconds.

In an intriguing race with local favourite Giacomo Leone, the African pulled away three kilometres from the line to record his second big city marathon victory inside four months.

Kiprono notched up his personal best of 2:06:44, the fourth fastest time, when winning the Berlin Marathon in September, and said that he might have approached that time in better weather conditions and on a smooth road surface. Leone was second in a personal best 2:08:41.

Kenya scored a double victory with Tegla Loroupe taking the women's honours in 2:32:04. Loroupe was well adrift of the world record 2:20:43 she set in Berlin but dismissed her performance as just a training run.

The race - billed as the first major athletics event of the millennium - had its genesis 20 months ago when Nebiolo decided, in his usual autocratic fashion, that the run had to take place in his adopted home city.

To satisfy his ambitions, he ensured that the race was moved from its normal position on the calendar in late March and provided the finance to attract some of the world's top runners on a date when they would normally be training hard in their home countries. He also managed to persuade Pope John Paul to give his blessing to the assembled runners at the start in St Peter's Square.