Eritrean-born Meb Keflezighi, who won the New York City Marathon yesterday, is the first American man to win the race in 27 years. Meb came to the US as a 12 year old boy in 1987 as a refugee from his war-torn country and became a US citizen in 1998. He has emerged as one of America's leading long-distance runners since graduating from UCLA. He won a silver medal for America in the 2004 Olympics in Athens, but an injury knocked him out of contention last year. The Athens medal was the first for an American male marathon runner since Frank Shorter won a silver medal in 1976.
Meb's time of 2 hours, 9 minutes and 15 seconds was his best finish time ever.
