Sprint Decides Wheel Race

Kurt Fearnley of Australia won the men’s wheelchair race of the Los Angeles Marathon on Sunday, outdueling six-time winner Saul Mendoza of Mexico.

Fearnley, 23, won by sprinting past the 37-year-old Mendoza in the final 300 yards. He finished in 1 hour 30 minutes 11 seconds.

Mendoza, who lives in Wimberly, Texas, was named athlete of the century in Mexico in 2000. So Fearnley said he did not breathe a sigh of relief until he crossed the finish line.

“You can’t take the Mexican athlete of the century for granted,” said Fearnley, the 2004 Paralympic marathon champion. “He’s always going to fight.”

Cheri Blauwet, 24, won the women’s wheelchair division for the third year in a row. Blauwet, of Menlo Park, Calif., finished in 1:51:45.

Fearnley and Blauwet endorsed the idea of a battle-of-the-sexes challenge similar to that used for the men’s and women’s runners for the second consecutive year.

Blauwet, a medical student at Stanford, defeated runner-up Shirley Reilly of Tucson by six seconds, the narrowest of her three Los Angeles victories.

“I’d raced Shirley in numerous events in the past, and she’s always been a strong racer but never in the top group of women,” Blauwet said. “I haven’t raced her since last fall, and obviously, since last fall, she’s come into her own a little bit.

“She figured out a few tricks of the trade, and today she stepped up, most certainly, which is really exciting to see.”

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Albert Pugliese, 81, the oldest runner among the 289 who had run the 19 previous L.A. Marathons, is 20 for 20. Pugliese, formerly of Northridge and now a resident of Sun City West, Ariz., was timed in 7:48:53, placing 18,903rd overall and 12,005th among men. His youngest daughter, 55-year-old Bunny Amoroso of Simi Valley, ran alongside him and recorded the identical time, placing 18,904th overall and 6,899th among women.

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Jorge DeLeon of Wahiawa, Hawaii, who lost his right leg in Afghanistan as a member of the 82nd Airborne Division, finished 12th in the hand-crank wheelchair competition in 3:24:03.