BOSTON -- American marathon runner Kara Goucher literally gave defending women's champion Dire Tune a run for the money in Monday's 113th Boston Marathon, but in the end Goucher just didn't have enough juice to win and Kenyan runner Salina Kosgei beat them both, sprinting ahead at the last second to the Copley Square finish line.

Approaching the finish, Tune of Ethiopia and Kosgei of Kenya nearly seemed to collide in one of the closest, most dramatic marathon endings in race history.

Kosgei broke the tape at 2:32:16, only one second ahead of Tune, who collapsed at the finish line and was taken away by ambulance to Massachusetts General Hospital. Goucher came in 9 seconds later.

In the elite men's race, Ethiopian Deriba Merga cruised to a seemingly effortless win, crossing the finish line in 2:08:42, nearly a full minute ahead of his nearest contender Daniel Rono of Kenya. American Ryan Hall came in third.

First place winners will collect $150,000 along with the trophy, with second-place winners taking home $75,000 and third place runners collecting $40,000.

Defending champion Robert Cheruiyot, trying for his fourth consecutive Boston Marathon win, collapsed in the Cleveland Circle section of the race and was hospitalized with low back pain. He dropped off the course and asked a police officer for help. He was taken to St. Elizabeth's Hospital.

Goucher, who maintained a commanding lead until the final minutes of the race, said she broke with her own strategy to "wait, wait, wait, wait, wait -- sprint," and may have run out of energy a bit too early because she was buoyed by the spirit of the crowd cheering for her.

"I just felt really good and I just wanted it for the U.S.," she said. "There was so much support ... I thought it would carry me in."

No American has won the race since 1985, when Lisa Larsen-Weidenbach claimed the trophy and two other American women placed second and third, but American women made a strong showing early on Monday, with Elva Dryer of the U.S. in the lead of the women's elite runners, followed by De Reuck and Goucher. More than an hour into the course, however, the Ethiopian women began to take command.

By the time the elite women reached the halfway mark in Wellesley, Elfenesh Alemu, Bezunesh Bekele and Atsede Habtamu claimed the top three spots.

As the pack rounded the corner onto Commonwealth Avenue in Newton, however, two hours into the race, Goucher and De Reuck were still in contention, running close alongside Tune, Alice Timbilili and Bezunesh Bekele at mile 20.

As the group came down Chestnut Hill Avenue, turning into Cleveland Circle, Goucher broke out of the pack and took the lead, followed closely by Tune and Bekele. She maintained the lead almost to the last, battling it out with Tune and Kosgei to the finish.

South African marathon wheelchair champion Ernst Van Dyk claimed his eighth Boston Marathon trophy Monday, tying women's wheelchair champ Jean Driscoll for most Boston victories ever.

Van Dyk crossed the finish line at 10:55 a.m., just about 90 minutes after he started the race in Hopkinton, battling a strong head wind all the way that put him 16 minutes behind his 2008 finishing time.

With the win, Van Dyk surpassed previous men's all-time title holder Clarence DeMar, who had seven Boston wins.

Defending women's wheelchair champ Wakako Tsuchida of Japan also claimed victory, crossing the finish line in just under two hours at 1:54:37.

Another win for Cheruiyot would have been Kenya's 17th men's title in the past 19 years.

More than 26,000 runners were signed up to run the Boston Marathon under cool, overcast skies Monday. The 26.2-mile race from Hopkinton to Boston has been dominated by elite African runners in recent years.

Van Dyk said Heartbreak Hill is always the roughest part of the race for him.

As he waited for the gun to go off at the starting line Monday, he said it's all in a day's work for him.

"It's what I do. It's my job, coming to work every day," Van Dyke said, adding that he's scheduled to race in marathons in London and Korea in the next few weeks.

A highlight of this year's race was the participation of four-time Boston Marathon winner Bill Rodgers, 61, back in the race for the first time in a decade.

Rodgers ran his last race in 1999 but dropped out at Heartbreak Hill that year. This year he is recovering from prostate cancer treatments and said he wanted to run again to call attention to the disease and encourage men to get early diagnosis and treatment.

Americans Hall and Goucher were the top U.S. men and women in their respective categories. Minutes before the starting gun fired, Goucher said she was optimistic about her chances and grateful to fans.

"I've been overwhelmed by the support and I just want to say thanks," she said.

Hall, 27, said when he needed inspiration, he turned to YouTube videos of Bill Rodgers' victories. After the race he said he was happy with a third-place finish and found the course a little tougher than he anticipated, mainly because of the weather.

"It was a tough race. The wind was in our face all the way, which made it really tough," said Hall, who finished 10th in the Beijing Olympics.

Temperatures along the race course were in the 40s, but runners faced a head wind at the start and forecasters said there may be rain in the afternoon, when some stragglers are still finishing the course.