Meb Keflezighi won the 2014 Boston Marathon Monday before thousands of cheering spectators on hand in a show of defiance to last year's twin bombings near the finish line that killed three spectators and injured more than 260 others.
Keflezighi is the first American to win the legendary race since Greg Meyer in 1983. Pumping his fist in exhilaration, the Eritrean-born Keflezighi crossed the finish line Monday in 2 hours, 8 minutes, 37 seconds. In this 118th edition of the race, he beat runner-up Wilson Chebet of Kenya by 11 seconds.
Kenyan Rita Jeptoo won the women's race for the third time, with a record-breaking time of 2 hours, 18 minutes, 57 seconds. Ethiopian Buzunesh Deba finished second, just over a minute later.
This year's race included an expanded field of runners - 36,000, to include about 6,000 from last year who were not allowed to cross the finish line because of the bombings