BIRMINGHAM, England -- Amanal Petros made sure there was no photo finish this time.
The German won the men's marathon at the European championships Sunday morning by a whopping 7 seconds, less than a year after missing out on gold in a photo finish at the world championships in Tokyo.
Petros crossed the finish line in Birmingham in 2 hours, 9 minutes, 11 seconds -- breaking the championships record in the process. Italy's Pietro Riva took silver in 2:09:18, three seconds better than Israel's Gashau Ayale.
In September, the Eritrean-born Petros settled for silver behind Tanzania's Alphonce Simbu in the closest marathon in world championships history. Both men were officially clocked at 2:09:48, but it was determined that Simbu crossed the line a fraction sooner.
In the women's marathon Sunday, Finland's Alisa Vainio dominated the field to finish in 2:22:26, nearly five minutes ahead of silver medalist Lili Anna Vindics-Toth of Hungary. Britain's Abbie Donnelly took bronze. Vainio broke Christelle Daunay's championship record from 2014 by almost three minutes.
Heading into the final session of the weeklong championships, Italy holds a slim lead over Britain atop the medals table. The Italians lead in both gold medals (8) and overall medals (19). The hosts have seven golds and 14 medals overall.
Swedish pole vaulter Armand "Mondo" Duplantis goes for his fourth consecutive European championship title Sunday night.
The world record is 6.31 meters, which the Louisiana-born Duplantis vaulted in March. That was his 15th world record. He first broke it in 2020 and has eclipsed his mark by 1 centimeter each time since.
In qualifying, the two-time reigning Olympic champion looked fully recovered from a thigh issue that forced him to stop competing at the London Diamond League meet one month ago.
