HOPKINTON, Mass. -- Dire Tune, 22, of Ethiopia, and Robert Cheruiyot, 29, of Kenya, were the winners of the 2008 Boston Marathon elite runners' races, with Tune claiming her laurel crown in a nail-biting win, while Cheruiyot cruised to what seemed like an easy victory after setting a blazing pace.

Tune duked it out with Russia's Alevtina Biktimirova, 25, in a hard-fought battle for the lead in the elite women's race, as the pair ran shoulder to shoulder all the way to the Copley Square finish line and the laurel crown at the end of the course.

Both Tune and Cheruiyot each picked up $150,000 in prize money for winning the 112th marathon.

Tune broke away with only about 100 meters remaining, crossing the finish line in 2:25.25 and beating Biktimirova by only 2 seconds, the closest finish in the race's history. The previous closest finish was 10 seconds.

In the men's elite race, there was no contest as defending champion Cheruiyot set a blazing speed through the hills of Newton, leaving all contenders far in his wake to claim his fourth Boston title. He crossed the finish line in an unofficial time of 2:07:46, missing the course record of 2:07:14 that he set in 2006 by only 32 seconds.

Cheruiyot joins only two other men who have ever won the race four times in its history: Bill Rodgers and seven-time winner Clarence DeMar.

Abderrahime Bouramdane of Morocco finished second in this year's men's division race in a time of 2:09:04. Third was Khalid El Boumlili who finished in 2:10:35.

South Africa's Ernst Van Dyk, 35, won his seventh Boston Marathon wheelchair division title, crossing the finish line in 1:26:49 and tying the record for most marathon victories as he did so. It was his second-slowest race course time but he won by a huge margin.

The men's wheelchair champ came back from a third-place defeat in 2007 to reclaim his title, tying Clarence DeMar for second place on the list of all-time Boston victories, trailing only Jean Driscoll.

Wakako Tsuchida, 33, of Tokyo, captured the women's elite wheelchair title for the second straight year, crossing the finish line at Copley Square with an unoffical time of 1:48.32, which was 5 minutes faster than her winning time last year. It was Tsuchida's fifth marathon and her fourth victory.

Among the elite women runners, Latvia's Jelena Prokupcuka took the lead early Monday, running the first mile in just a little more than five minutes.

She dropped out of the lead pack, which was reduced to four, by the time the elite women reached the hills of Newton, Mass., one of the toughest legs of the race.

As the elite women passed Wellesley College and hundreds of screaming students earlier in the race, Prokupcuka and Magdaline Chemjor, 29, of Kenya, were in the lead of a still tight women's pack. As the women entered Newton, however, the pack was reduced to five, then four, then two.

At that point, Prokopcuka, Rita Jeptoo of Kenya and Tune made decisive moves to break from the pack.

Then, as the hills climbed through Newton, Dire and Alevtina Biktimirova, 25, of Russia, were in the lead, with the other women beginning to lag far behind and Jeptoo racing in third place.

Defending elite men's champion, Cheruiyot, set a blazing pace in the pack of 17 elite male racers, and maintained it all the way as the racers ran under a 2:06 pace.

The men were also reduced to four by the time they reached Newton, with Cheruiyot dominating all the way and finally breaking so far ahead of the pack among Newton's hills that it seemed no one would be able to challenge him.

The marathon got started promptly under clear, bright spring skies in Hopinkton Monday, with the wheelchair division off to a fast start at 9:25 a.m. and the elite women runners hitting the pavement shortly after. The men's race began at 10 a.m.

The top marathon runners in the world, and thousands of other racers, tackled 26.2 miles of Boston-area roads, all trying to set their own personal best records in one of sport's most well-known marathon races.

About 25,000 runners gathered at the race start line early Monday. It was the race's second biggest field of contestants, with more than 38,000 contestants in the 1996 race.

Unlike last year, the 2008 marathon was run under clear skies, with a high temperature reaching the low 60s.

Another athlete known for racing, but not on foot, was also in this year's marathon. Tour De France champion bicyclist Lance Armstrong was among the racers in the lead men's pack and he finished the marathon at number 488 with an unofficial time of 2:50:58.

Among the American elite male runners were Nicholas A. Arciniaga, 24, of Rochester Hills, Mich., and Jason Delaney, 28, of Golden, Colo. Arciniaga has a personal best marathon time of 2:16:58, recorded in 2006. He was one of the youngest qualifiers at the 2008 U.S. Olympic Trials last November in New York.

Also among American elite male runners were Marc A. Jeuland, 29, of Carborro, N.C., James E. Lander, 29, of Whittier, Calif., Patrick J. Rizzo, 24, also of Rochester Hills, Mich., and Michael R. Wardian, 34, of Arlington, Va.

There were no Americans among the elite female runners. Three of the runners were from Ethiopia, two from Russia, two from Kenya and one from Ukraine. Others were from Latvia, Italy and Romania.

Russia's Lidiya Grigoryeva, last year's women's winner, was trying for a repeat but dropped out of the lead pack fairly early in the race.

Grigoryeva ran behind Latvia's Jelena Prokupcuka for most of the 2007 race and then, in a stunning upset, pulled ahead in the last two miles to win, leaving Prokupcuka to come in second place two years running.

Kenyans have dominated the Boston Marathon in the last two decades, the men winning 16 of the last 20 races.

The marathon weaves its way through the Ashland, Framingham, Natick, Wellesley, Newton, Brookline and finally into Boston, passing Kenmore Square and ending in Copley Square.

Several Massachusetts National Guardsmen were at the starting line before sunrise. Their plan was to walk the marathon route in uniform with 40-pound packs on their backs. They said they're walking to honor their Army National Guard soldiers who are currently deployed overseas. They said they expected the race trek to take about eight hours.

"We haven't been training at all for this. It was an idea I got last Thursday ..." Kyle Laidman said.

"We're just going to deal with the pain. A day of sweating here doesn't equal a day of bleeding over there," Gary Comeau said.

Five runners from Cameroon were running the race for the first time. They were at the start line early, taking it all in.

"This is the biggest thing one can do for one's country. We are very proud. Because, when you come around and you see so many people from different nationalities, that is when this period of belonging to Cameroon really reawakens in you," racer Roland Mbenkum said.

Ham radio operators were also up before dawn, getting ready for the largest single-day sporting event in the world.

"We have 30 here at the start, about 60 at the finish and a little over 100 all along the course," one operator said.

About 1,200 participants ran the race to raise money for one of 24 charities, raising an estimated $10 million

In the U.S. Olympic trials, held Sunday, Deena Kastor won in 2:29:35 to earn a berth in the Beijing Games. Magdalena Lewy Boulet and Blake Russell finished second and third to earn the other spots on the U.S. Olympic marathon team.