Dong finished the 42km race in 3 hours, 7 minutes and 21 seconds, about two minutes after Indonesian Erni Ulatningsih. Dong was two minutes ahead of Lakmini Anuradhi Bogawahatta from Sri Lanka.

The runner fulfilled her promise to break her own record of 3 hours 12 minutes, which she had set at the national championships in 2007.

Dong, who represented Vietnam in the third leg of the US$1 million marathon, helped the country jump from fourth to third place in the regional rankings with a cumulative time of 9:52:25.

Marathons are not Vietnam’s strong suit, so coaches hope that the Greatest Race on Earth (GROE) will be a good chance for athletes to hone their skills ahead of the 25th Southeast Asian (SEA) Games this December in Laos.

It also presented a chance for them to test the ability of their Thai rivals.

Dong’s finish was sufficient to place the Vietnamese team above Thailand in the overall ranking - with a time gap of about five minutes.

On the men’s side, Dong’s teammate Nghiem Xuan Chung also ran better than expected with a time of 2:39:22, ranking fourth, and climbing up two steps in the regional group.

Kenneth Mugara led a Kenyan sweep in the men’s event after clocking a course record time of 2:11:51 ahead of David Tarus, second, and John Kelai, winner of the previous two races, third.

The winning team is the one with the shortest cumulative time. The series will conclude with the final leg in Hong Kong on Feb. 8.

Thirty-six nations are taking part in the 2008-2009 series -- 23 men’s and 13 women’s teams -- with the challenges split into three regions - Africa, South Asia and North East Asia, and the Rest of the World.

VNA-VOV