We begin on the streets of the nation's capital which were flooded with runners early this morning for the 36th Beijing Marathon. The event began at Tian'an men square and finished on Landscape Avenue in the southern part of Olympic Forest Park. This year the interest in the race was bigger than ever with 30，000 people taking part with runners from 33 countries.

The front line of runners would be made up of 16 athletes who were given special invitations by the organizers to compete. They include China's Li Zicheng who won the 2015 Wuxi Marathon.

After more than two hours, the first runners would cross the finish line with Ethiopian athletes making a clean sweep of the podium positions as three runners all turned in close times. The winning time was 2 hours 11 minutes and 8 seconds while second place was only 21 seconds behind and the runner in third was 47 seconds back of first.

And Ethiopians would also pace the women's division with the fastest time being 2 hours, 25 minutes and 55 seconds which is the best result for any woman in the last ten years of the Bejing marathon. Second place would go to another Ethiopian who came in 15 second behind her compatriot and reportedly passed out later during the awards ceremony due to exhaustion.