Soi manages hat trick in BOclassic 

The 35th edition of the BOclassic was dominated by Africans. With his third victory in a row in the best cast New Year's Eve run of the world in Bozen/Bolzano (Italy), the Olympic bronze medalist Soi definitely follows in the footsteps of record winner Serhiy Lebid. In the women's race, run in drizzle, World Junior champion Gedo Sule Utura was in a class of her own.

In the high-class men's run, Soi had to work hard for his third victory in Bozen/Bolzano as never before. Only in the sixth of the eight rounds could he break away from his opponents in the 10 km race. Jida Imane Merga (Ethiopia), owner of a fourth place in Berlin over 10,000 m, and the British European Indoor and X master Mo Farah finished second and third and thus topped the winners off. Farah is the first British male runner on the podium since the third place of Barry Knight in 1983.

No runner other than Serhiy Lebid managed three victories in Bozen. However, the Ukrainian ended up on the ninth place, defeated. Italy's young star Andrea Lalli finished fifth behind the Kenyan Silas Kipruto, who tore the field apart in the second, super fast round and thus separated the wheat from the chaff. The nation of Kenya managed its 17th victory in Bozen and it was the 11th for the men.

The women's race (5 km) was plain sailing for Gedo Sule Utura. The World Junior champion over 5000 m already won predominantly in the Corrida de Houilles last Sunday. In Bozen, she managed to distance herself in the second round. This advance brought her safely to the victory. The Slovenian Sonja Roman was surprisingly strong. The 1500 m specialist was the only one to keep up with Utura and beat the French Christelle Daunay. The European X champion Hayley Yelling (Great Britain) was not able to repeat her extraordinary success of two weeks ago and could not get beyond the seventh place. The Hungarian Aniko Kalovics, after four podium places in a row, had to content herself with the fifth place.

Despite a very rainy afternoon, about 10,000 people gathered around the track and followed this special athletics event in the historical streets of Bozen/Bolzano.