Jaouad Gharib of Morocco celebrates after winning the marathon in Helsinki on Saturday. (AFP)

Helsinki: Morocco’s Jaouad Gharib became only the second athlete to retain the marathon title at the World Championships on Saturday. Gharib made his move shortly after 25 km of the 42.195-km race to win in two hours 10 minutes and 11 seconds.

A strong finishing Christopher Isegwe of Tanzania was second in 2:10.21 and Japan’s Tsuyoshi Ogata took the bronze in 2:11.16.

Gharib, 33, was the surprise winner of the marathon at the 2003 World Championships in only his second competitive outing over the distance.

Spain’s Abel Anton is the only other athlete to win successive world marathon titles, in 1997 and 1999.

There was a leading group of 27 athletes at the halfway stage as everyone played a waiting game in the Helsinki sunshine.

Gharib and Italy’s Olympic champion Stefano Baldini went to the front after 25 km.

The Moroccan took the lead as Baldini began to struggle and the Italian later appeared to be suffering with cramp and dropped out of the race.

Flanked by police riding bicycles, Gharib had pulled 22 seconds clear of the field by 35 km and never looked like losing his title.

As he ran into the Olympic stadium, Gharib was cheered on by several hundred spectators who had waited patiently, watching the race unfold on a giant screen.

Isegwe moved up from fifth at 35 km to second leaving his compatriot Samson Ramadhani and Ogata to battle for bronze.

Ogata pulled clear of a struggling Ramadhani in the final three km to secure the bronze medal and the Tanzanian faded to fifth behind Tokyo marathon winner Tos-hinari Takaoka.

On Friday, Ladji Doucoure sealed France’s first gold. European indoor champion Doucoure flashed across the line in 13.07 seconds, one-hundredth of a second in front of Chinese Olympic champion Liu Xiang. (As reported in Saturday’s Late City edition).

He received the gold medal from Englishman Colin Jackson, the event’s world record holder, on a thankfully dry night in the Finnish capital after several days of rain.

American Allen Johnson, who was bidding to win a record fifth world track title, took the bronze after leading for most of the race before Liu moved ahead just before the finish.

The 34-year-old Johnson, the 1996 Olympic champion on home soil in Atlanta, said he would still around for the 2007 world championships in Osaka and the Beijing Olympics the next year.

Yelena Isinbayeva profited from a welcome break in the dreadful weather that has disrupted the 10th world championships to set her 18th world women’s pole vault record.

The event was postponed from Wednesday because of gale force winds which would have made vaulting not just hazardous but potentially dangerous.

To everyone’s relief Friday evening was fine and dry after morning rain and Isinbayeva took full advantage to soar 5.01 metres for her ninth world record of the year and total prize money of $160,000. (Reuters)