Kenyan Wilson Kipsang made the most of the notoriously flat and fast Berlin streets to smash the marathon world record by 15 seconds en route to taking the title yesterday.

The 31-year-old Kipsang clocked a time of two hours, three minutes and 23 seconds to better the previous mark set two years ago in the same race by compatriot Patrick Makau, who was forced to pull out through injury two weeks ago.

Kipsang, who took bronze at the Olympics, produced a storming finish to leave compatriot Eliud Kipchoge a distant second almost a minute behind.

“I’m very happy that I have won and broken the world record,” Kipsang said .

“I was really inspired by Paul Tergat when he broke the world record here 10 years ago and I’m very happy that I was in a position to break the record on the same course.”

Kenyan Tergat’s time of 2:04:55 at the 2003 Berlin Marathon was the first to be ratified as a world record by governing body the IAAF.

In the women’s race, Kenya’s Florence Kiplagat took the title after she overcame a duel with compatriot Sharon Cherop.

Kiplagat repeated her 2011 win in Berlin with another strong run but her time of 2:21:13 was six minutes shy of the world record set by Briton Paula Radcliffe a decade ago.