A South Dublin native broke the Irish record to take home the national marathon title.
Kenya’s Moses Kemei won the Irish Life Dublin Marathon today in a personal best time of 2:08.47.
Ethiopia’s Abebaw Desalew was runner-up with 2:09.24, while Hiko Tonosa of Dundrum South Dublin Athletic Club broke the Irish record to win the national marathon title in 2:09:42.
Tonasa told RTÉ Sport: “It’s a fantastic day for me. I’m so happy with the result. It’s been very tough for me. I’ve battled with a lot of things and I’m really happy.
“This is my home championship,” he added. “Everyone said go to Berlin. I said I had to do my home championship.
“I want to thank all the Irish people that are behind me. I’m so happy with that.”
While the renowned athletes within the pack managed to cross the line just over the two hour mark, all eyes were on Hollywood actor and Dublin native Colin Farrell who finished the gruelling challenge in an impressive four hours, six minutes and 45 seconds.
That feat is all the more inspiring when you consider that the 48-year-old spent the last four kilometers of the race pushing his friend Emma Fogarty, who was in a wheelchair.
Farrell was racing on behalf of his close pal in order to raise funds and awareness for epidermolysis bullosa – a condition she has struggled with throughout her life.
EB is an incurable genetic condition that affects the body’s largest organ; the skin. People living with EB are missing the essential proteins that bind the skin’s layers together, so any minor friction, movement or trauma causes it to break, tear, and blister.
Both Farrell and Fogarty appeared on last week’s Late Late Show to discuss the condition and their long-running friendship.
Describing the condition on the programme, the 40-year-old said: “It means that my skin is as fragile as the wings of a butterfly basically, so if I bumped off you, it’ll literally tear off and blister.
“I have open wounds similar to third degree burns over 80% of my body.”
Farrell, on the other hand, criticised the Irish Government for not adequately looking after people with the skin condition.
“There’s no funding,” he said. “It’s actually inhumane on the part of the government, to be honest with you.”
“I get the ridiculousness of Mr. Hollywood, moneybags Farrell, coming on and asking for money. That’s not lost on me.
“But the government has a responsibility to the people of Ireland to look after the people of Ireland to the best of their ability, to cut corners where the people are going to suffer the least and to put the money where people are going to be given the most support and the most help where they’re needed.
“There’s only 300 people in this country that live with the cruelty of the condition that is epidermolysis bullosa. Emma is one of seven people that lives with the most severe version of it. There’s three versions of this condition.
“She’s only the third person to reach 40. And they have been asking, Debra has been asking for three years for €695,000 from the government.”
“And they put their money into – we all know, it’s in the papers, it’s on the news – there’s cell phone packages.”
You can donate to Emma’s cause here. So far, a whopping €715,441 has been raised towards the €1,000,000 goal.
