New Delhi, Nov 19 (IANS): Ethiopia's Berhanu Legese and reigning Olympic 10,000 metre champion Almaz Ayana clinched the respective elite men's and women's races at the Airtel Delhi Half Marathon (ADHM) here on Sunday.

Legese, who won the 2015 edition of the ADHM clocked 59:46 minutes followed by fellow Ethiopian Andamlak Belihu and American Leonard Korir, who completed their races in 59:51 and 59:52 minutes respectively.

The elite international women's category saw a complete domination from the Ethiopians with Almaz completing her fantastic debut in half marathon with a timing of 1:07:11 followed by Ababel Yeshaneh (1:07:19) and Netsanet Gudeta (1:07:24).

The elite Indian men's field witnessed a close contest with a few milliseconds separating veteran Nitendra Singh Rawat with last year's winner G. Lakshmanan as they consumed 1:03:53 to complete their races, while the third spot was grabbed by Avinash Sable (1:03:58).

L. Suriya dominated the elite Indian women's race, with a timing of 1:10:31 followed by Sudha Singh (1:11:30) and Parul Choudhary (1:13:09) grabbing the other two places on the podium.

A record 35,000 people participated in the annual half marathon, which nearly ran into trouble this year because of poor air quality before the Delhi High Court allowed it to go ahead as scheduled.