International 10K champion Emmanuel Chamer of Kenya secured an impressive double triumph this morning with a runaway triumph in the Half Marathon.

The 23-year-old Kenyan national team athlete stormed to victory in an impressive time of one hour, five minutes and 28 seconds - only 16 seconds off the race record and over a minute ahead of nearest rival, former British half-marathon champion David Mitchinson, who crossed the line on Front Street in 1:06.37.

Kenya's Ruto Kipkoech grabbed third with a time of 1:08.39.

In the women's race, meanwhile, defending champion and race favourite Silvia Skvortsova was out front by herself for the vast majority of the distance as the only two runners capable of matching her - America's Victoria Jackson and Katie Mcgregor - used the race more as a training run ahead of what they expect will be a long and demanding season.

Skvortsova - who narrowly missed out on defending her 10K title the previous day when she was beaten by McGregor - crossed the line in 1:17.38 while the two Americans finished virtually side by side over five minutes later.

A burst of speed by Kenyan pair Emmanuel Chamer and Joseph Ngetich four miles into Saturday's International 10k proved decisive and sealed first and second place for the two Africans.

They ran the fifth mile of the race in four minutes 35 seconds, the fastest split of the entire 6.2 mile event and in doing so opened up an immediate gap of 30 metres over a chasing group consisting of American Clint Wells, Ethiopian Alene Reta and Guernsey Islander Lee Merrien.

Kenya national team athlete Chamer, 23, appeared remarkably comfortable as he pushed the pace with Ngetich a step or two behind. Reaching the five-mile mark in 24:05, with the steep hill of Palmetto Road looming ahead Chamer's superior strength took him 30 metres clear of Ngetich by the time they reached the top. From there onwards Chamer continued to pull away and stretched his lead to 100 metres along the final incline of Frog Lane before turning in to the National Sports Centre to stop the clock at 29:47 - the second fastest winning time since 1998.

Two-time former champion Katie McGregor held off one of the best elite fields assembled in Bermuda in years to claim the women's International 10K title at a sun-drenched National Sports Centre on Saturday.

Having spent the first four miles of the race running virtually neck-and-neck with her two main rivals - defending champion Silvia Skortsova from Russia and fellow American Victoria Jackson - the 2003 and 2005 10K champion produced a powerful kick on North Shore which the others simply could not match.

And though a sharp pain in her side as she charged up Palmetto Hill in the race's latter stages gave her cause for concern, the former US 10,000 metres champion gritted her teeth through the discomfort to triumph in a time of 34 minutes and one second - over two minutes and twenty seconds outside the race record.