PRAGUE, May 5 (Xinhua) -- Lonah Salpeter from Israel won the women's contest of the Prague Marathon Sunday with a new track record of 2:19:46, which pushed her up to the fourth position in the world rankings.

At the beginning of the race, a group of five women including Salpeter followed a pacemaker through 5km in 16:42.

By 20km, Salpeter had gapped the other women and passed the half in 1:10:12 as three remained a few seconds behind her, but by 30km she had moved over one minute clear of her pursuers.

Although the wind increased in the latter stages of the race, she continued to increase her pace in the second half and finished in 2:19:46 at last, becoming the first woman to break 2:20:00 in Prague.

Her result is the fourth best of this season.

The second was Eshete Shitaye of Bahrain (2:22:39) and Yalew Genet from Ethiopia (2:24:34) was third.

In the meantime, Mahjoub Dazza, a Moroccan athlete competing for Bahrain in Prague, won the men's category clocking 2:05:58. Wolde Dawit and Bantiye Aychew, both from Ethiopia, won the second and third places respectively.

Some 10,000 runners took part in the race.