Defending champion Robert Cheruiyot of Kenya won his fourth Boston Marathon on Monday, while Ethiopia's Dire Tune took the women's crown in the event's tightest finish. Cheruiyot, the first Kenyan man to win four Boston Marathons after victories in 2003, 2006 and 2007, controlled the pace through the hilly Boston suburbs and was followed in second place by Abderrahime Bouramdane of Morocco. It was the 16th time since 1991 that a Kenyan has won the world's oldest annually contested marathon. The 29-year-old put distance between himself and a thinning pack of runners about one-and-a-half hours into the race but slowed in the final stretch to miss by 32 seconds his own 2006 course record. “The course is so tough, so it feels great to me,” he told a news conference after winning the $150,000 winner's prize and becoming only the fourth man to win four Boston Marathons. He also earned a likely chance to represent Kenya at the Beijing Olympics in August. The real drama was in the women's field, where Tune and Russia's Alevtina Biktimirova battled shoulder-to-shoulder through the final stages with both runners sprinting ahead of the other as they neared the finish line. Biktimirova, 25, trailed by just two seconds, finishing in 2:25:27. In the men's race, Cheruiyot finished the 112th edition of the Boston Marathon in an official time of two hours, seven minutes and 46 seconds. Born into poverty, the lanky Cheruiyot who once worked in a friend's barber shop to eke out a living is now one of the richest sportsmen in Kenya.Bouramdane finished second in 2:09:04 and Khalid El Boumlili, also of Morocco, third in 2:10:35. Only one American finished in the top 10, Nicholas Arciniaga taking 10th place. The last American to win the Boston Marathon was Greg Myer in 1983. __
