KENYA TOP THIS? NDUNGU REPEATS IN MEN'S RACE; RUSSIAN TOP WOMAN.

Byline: Rich Hammond  Staff Writer

Los Angeles Marathon founder Dr. William Burke has tried just about every tactic possible to lower the race's winning times over the past few years. Perhaps now he should look into a temperature-controlled dome to cover the entire 26.2-mile course.

The race's redesigned course drew rave reviews and a record number of participants for its 17th annual running Sunday morning, but it failed to produce the record times Burke and other marathon officials proudly predicted.

Stephen Ndungu won the men's race for the second consecutive year and Lyubov Denisova of Russia was a surprise women's winner, and each clocked the third-best time in race history. But the times were nothing for Burke to celebrate.

Ndungu, a 34-year-old Kenyan, finished in 2 hours, 10 minutes and 47 seconds, more than a minute off Simon Bor's record time in 1999, when the course was significantly more difficult. Denisova, like Ndungu, ran away from the pack around the 18-mile mark and finished in 2:28:49, just less than two minutes slower than the women's record.

The race failed to produce record times in part because of higher-than- usual temperatures, which were caused by a half-hour delay in the start of the race. A suspicious package was reported found near the Convention Center, which the Los Angeles Police Department bomb squad investigated and found to be nothing but an empty cardboard box.

But the delay was enough to push the start of the race back to 9:15 a.m. and force the elite runners to deal with increased temperatures.

``I really wanted a time under 2:09, but you can never get everything you want,'' Burke said. ``The reason we had (a record) 21,107 runners out there is because the weather was so beautiful. But the reason we had a 2:10:47 is also because the weather was so beautiful. I even got hot and I was riding in a car.''

Burke watched Ndungu become the only male repeat champion in race history. He pulled away from second-place Raymond Kipkoech Chemwelo and third-place Benson Mbithi (the 2000 champion) just past the 18-mile mark and almost immediately after pacesetter Joseph Kariuki left the course.

Ndungu, an admitted poor finisher, followed his 2001 strategy again and jumped out to a lead of about 45 seconds by the 23-mile mark. Chemwelo and Mbithi stayed together and tried to catch him but never got close enough to cause any concern.

``It was my chance, I had to go,'' Ndungu said of his break at the 18- mile mark. ``This year the course was so different, but that was good for me. They had some hills that were not as steep as the ones we had last year.''

Mbithi thrived on those steeper hills in 2000, but this time he finished third. Chemwelo clocked a 2:12:19, which was 1:52 behind Ndungu and 13 seconds ahead of Mbithi, who did not run with the lead pack for the first half of the race as part of his strategy.

Mbithi joined Ndungu, Chemwelo, Kariuki and Noah Bor in a pack at about the 14-mile mark but could not keep up when Ndungu took off four miles later. The break seemed to come when Kariuki left the race and Ndungu kept running while the other three Kenyans slowed down briefly at a water station.

``If we had not had the delay, the record would (have been broken),'' Mbithi said.

In the women's race, Denisova also ran behind the early leaders, but her strategy worked. Romanians Constantina Dita and Aurica Buia and American Sylvia Mosqueda controlled the pace early, but Denisova took over after 15 miles.

Denisova quickly opened up an eight-second lead over the Romanians, who fell way back. Tatyana Pozdnyakova of the Ukraine, whose husband also trains Denisova, finished second in 2:30:26, almost two minutes behind Denisova. Anna Pichrtova of the Czech Republic finished third in 2:33:25.

``I started running at my tempo and when I saw I could make a move, I went,'' Denisova, who won last year's Long Beach Marathon, said through an interpreter. ``I knew they would be tired later in the race, so I tried to put some distance between myself and them. The delay had a little effect, but I love the warm temperature.''

CAPTION(S):

3 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) KING OF THE ROAD

Kenya's Stephen Ndungu becomes first to win men's back-to-back L.A. Marathons.

(2 -- 3) Kenyan Stephen Ndungu, left, won the L.A. Marathon for the second consecutive year and Russian Lyubov Denisova was a surprising winner in the women's race Sunday.

Hans Gutknecht/Staff Photographer

Box:

TOP THREE FINISHERS