NEW YORK (AP) — Eritrea's Ghirmay Ghebresiassie has won the New York City Marathon in the men's field. 
 
 Ghebresiassie finished his debut in New York with an unofficial time of 2 hours, 7 minutes, 51 seconds. 
 
 For most of the course, the men's field was a three-man race between Ghebresiassie, Kenya's Lucas Rotich and Ethiopia's Lelisa Desisa. By mile 20, Ghebresiassie gradually began pulling away. 
 
 The 19-year-old beat Rotich by 62 seconds and became the youngest male winner in New York. The previous youngest male winners were Alberto Salazar in 1980 and Tom Fleming in 1973, who won as 22-year-olds. 
 
 Defending champion Stanley Biwott withdrew at the 10-mile mark with a right calf injury. He also dropped out in the Rio Olympics after getting sick. 
 
 American Abdi Abdirahman placed third. 
 
 Desisa, who was the runner-up in New York in 2014 and a two-time Boston Marathon winner, dropped out at the 22nd mile. ||||| Dick Traum speaks during a news interview during a news conference acknowledging runners in the 1976 New York City Marathon Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2016, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II) (Associated Press) 
 
 Dick Traum speaks during a news interview during a news conference acknowledging runners in the 1976 New York City Marathon Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2016, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II) (Associated Press) 
 
 NEW YORK (AP) — Forty years ago, the world's top two marathon runners were each handed an envelope with a check in it for $3,000 — secret rewards for helping raise the profile of the very first five-borough New York City Marathon. 
 
 "It was an instant hit, a 'Wow!'" says George Hirsch, chairman of the board of the New York Road Runners club that on Sunday hosts the 2016 race. 
 
 What is now the world's largest marathon began in 1970 when 126 men and one woman circled Central Park. Six years later, about 2,000 amateurs, including Hirsch, took the race to the streets of New York for the first time, touching all five boroughs. 
 
 Leading the pack were American marathon record-holder Bill Rodgers and Olympic gold medalist Frank Shorter, paid to push the 26.2-mile run into the global spotlight. Hirsch — then a prominent publisher — passed them the checks "under the table," he remembers. 
 
 "We wanted to give the most important runners in the world an incentive to be here," Hirsch says. "They made a big difference." 
 
 Rodgers won the first of his four New York marathons. 
 
 The payments to hit the pavement certainly paid off. 
 
 This year, about 50,000 people from more than 120 countries — half of them women — have registered. The elite athletes will be competing for a prize purse totaling $803,000, with potential time bonuses. The men's and women's champions will each receive $100,000. And $25,000 goes to the fastest competitor in a wheelchair. 
 
 All eyes will be on the two Kenyans who won last year — Mary Keitany, also the 2014 champion, and Stanley Biwott. 
 
 Among Americans, Gwen Jorgensen, the triathlon gold medalist at the Rio Olympics in August, will be running her first marathon. Molly Huddle, who set a U.S. record while finishing sixth in the 10,000 meters in Rio, is making her first try at this longer distance. 
 
 The star-studded American field also includes Olympians Dathan Ritzenhein and Kim Conley, who is making her marathon debut. 
 
 Scattered amid the crowded, sweaty runners will be eight amateurs in their 60s and 70s — all trailblazers in New York in 1976. 
 
 Dick Traum was the first person to complete a marathon with a prosthetic leg, in 7 hours, 24 minutes. Asked to step off ahead of the thousands of others, he was the first person to start the five-borough marathon. 
 
 "I ran as if you broke your leg and had a cast, trying to get across the street quickly, hopping-style," says Traum, who has a business Ph.D. and created his own computer app company to help companies maximize resources. 
 
 At 75, he'll mount his handcycle Sunday at the start line near the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in the borough of Staten Island. A knee replacement on his natural leg disqualifies him from actually running; one leg must be intact by the rules of the race. 
 
 He lost his limb as a young man when a runaway car crashed into him at a New Jersey gas station. 
 
 Traum was a member of New York Road Runners, the club led by Fred Lebow, a Romanian-born New Yorker and avid runner whose energy fueled the early efforts to expand and elevate the marathon to a global level. Even after his death, Lebow symbolizes the race, his statue standing near the Central Park finish line. 
 
 For the city's first five-borough run, Lebow, Hirsch and Percy Sutton, Manhattan's borough president, had persuaded Mayor Abe Beame to ban traffic from the route that spanned the whole city. On the sidelines were tens of thousands of spectators — a far cry from the 2 million or so now cheering on runners. 
 
 The three men told the mayor that the crime-ridden, nearly bankrupt New York of the mid-1970s "needed the marathon to lift the city's spirits," Hirsch says. 
 
 Rodgers and Shorter's payments were legal but defied a regulation of the sport's governing body, now called USA Track & Field, which classified marathoners as unpaid amateurs. Many struggled financially. 
 
 New York spurred the worldwide running boom, with ordinary people huffing and puffing their way through big urban marathons that followed in London, Amsterdam, Paris, Tokyo, Shanghai and elsewhere. 
 
 The Boston Marathon is the oldest, launched in 1897. 
 
 On the first Sunday in November, when exhausted participants finally finish, some collapsing into the arms of loved ones, many take away new friendships while collecting funds for more than 300 charities. 
 
 Four decades after a small group of hard-core enthusiasts started it, the NYC Marathon has become an athletic and social democracy. 
 
 "In every neighborhood, spectators come at us with a lot of enthusiasm — and that may be conga drums, it may be somebody banging on cookware," says Paul Fetscher, who ran in 1976. "You get to see the best neighborhoods, you get to see the worst, you get to see the richest, you get to see the poorest, and you get to see the immigrant population of Brooklyn, where more than a million people were not born in the United States. 
 
 "But they all love sport," he adds. "And running is the most basic of all sports: left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot." 
 
 In 1976, Fetscher aced the race in 2:29. 
 
 At 70, still working in commercial real estate, he plans to run the 26.2 miles again. 
 
 "I can still do that," he said. ||||| NEW YORK (AP) — Mary Keitany has won her third straight New York City Marathon to become the first woman to win three consecutive marathons in New York since Grete Waltz's five-year run from 1982 to 1986. 
 
 The 34-year-old Kenyan defended her title Sunday in an unofficial time of 2 hours, 24 minutes, 26 seconds, beating countrywoman Joyce Chepkirui by nearly four minutes. 
 
 Last year, Keitany pulled away around the 21-mile mark. On Sunday, she began getting a sizable lead at the 15-mile mark as the race crossed the Queensboro Bridge into Manhattan. 
 
 Keitany reached Manhattan in less than 90 minutes. As she began running up First Avenue, television commentators referred to her as "The Boss of New York City," and following the 20-mile mark, Keitany led by more than two minutes. 
 
 Molly Huddle placed third in her debut after setting an American record at the 10,000 meters in the Rio Olympics. ||||| First place finisher Tatyana McFadden of the United States, right, talks with second place finisher Manuela Schar of Switzerland at the finish line of the 2016 New York City Marathon in New York, Sunday,... (Associated Press) 
 
 First place finisher Tatyana McFadden of the United States, right, talks with second place finisher Manuela Schar of Switzerland at the finish line of the 2016 New York City Marathon in New York, Sunday, Nov. 6, 2016. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig) (Associated Press) 
 
 NEW YORK (AP) — Tatyana McFadden has swept the four major marathons for the fourth straight year by winning the New York City Marathon women's wheelchair race. 
 
 The 27-year-old American finished Sunday with an unofficial time of 1 hour, 47 minutes, 43 seconds. She again completed the Grand Slam by winning in London, Boston, Chicago and New York, extending her record streak to 17 straight wins in major marathons. 
 
 McFadden, who won six medals at the Rio Paralympics, took the lead for good at the 15-mile mark and comfortably led the rest of the course to win for the fifth time in New York. 
 
 Marcel Hug of Switzerland won his second NYC Marathon title in the men's race and his sixth marathon this year. He edged Australia's Kurt Fearnley by a sixth-tenths of a second, repeating their photo finish at last month's Chicago marathon. 
 
 Defending champion Ernst Van Dyk of South Africa came in fourth.
– Mary Keitany ran away with her third New York City Marathon in a row, reports the AP, with the 34-year-old Kenyan logging an unofficial time Sunday of 2 hours, 24 minutes, 26 seconds to become the first woman to string together three straight victories since the 1980s. And she did so convincingly, finishing nearly four minutes ahead of her nearest rival, Joyce Chepkirui of Kenya. On Sunday, Keitany began getting a sizable lead at the 15-mile mark as the race crossed the Queensboro Bridge into Manhattan. Keitany reached Manhattan in less than 90 minutes. As she began running up First Avenue, TV commentators dubbed her "The Boss of New York City," and following the 20-mile mark, Keitany led by more than two minutes. Molly Huddle placed third in her debut after setting an American record in the 10,000 meters in the Rio Olympics. Elsewhere: Eritrea's Ghirmay Ghebresiassie has won the men's field, finishing his debut in New York with an unofficial time of 2 hours, 7 minutes, 51 seconds. For most of the course, the men's field was a three-man race between Ghebresiassie, Kenya's Lucas Rotich and Ethiopia's Lelisa Desisa. By mile 20, Ghebresiassie gradually began pulling away. Tatyana McFadden has swept the four major marathons for the fourth straight year by winning the women's wheelchair race. The 27-year-old American finished Sunday with an unofficial time of 1 hour, 47 minutes, 43 seconds. She again completed the Grand Slam by winning in London, Boston, Chicago and New York, extending her record streak to 17 straight wins in major marathons. Meanwhile, Will Reeve, Christopher and Dana Reeve's son, is running the race to raise money for his parents' foundation. For a look at the history of the marathon, click here.