Meseret Basa soaked up the colourful atmosphere as she casually strolled around the National Stadium after claiming the Elite Women’s 10K title in an emphatic fashion today.

The 30-year-old Ethiopian stormed to victory in 35min 53sec and was seventh overall.

“I’m very excited to win because it was a good time on a very difficult course, so I’m very happy,” Basa said.

“There were hills on the course, which I like, and the weather was hot.”

The triumph was Basa’s second competing in Bermuda Marathon Weekend, having won the Marathon two years ago in 3:2:39.

“I like coming to Bermuda,” she added. “I like coming here because of the weather and the atmosphere. Everything is good.”

Finishing a distant second behind Basa and 28th overall in a time of 41:36 was Heather Kampf, of the United States, the 2015 winner.

She captured an unprecedented fifth Front Street Mile Elite Women’s title the previous evening.

“I honestly just needed a training run, but it’s hard not to get swept up into the moment of the race,” she said.

“The weather was gorgeous. I was here three years ago when it was windy and raining and the streets were flooded, so this is a quite a nice change. It seems as though the course is a lot easier than what I remembered. There were a lot of great cheers out there and also some cute dogs.”

Maya Weigel completed the course in the same time as her compatriot Kampf to round off then podium.

“It was a lot of fun coming off of the mile last night,” said Weigel, who finished runner-up behind Kampf in yesterday’s race. “The [mile race] was a hard effort and today was more of a hard training run.

“Heather and I ran together and worked together through the whole race. It was a very pretty, scenic route and kind of challenging with all the hills.”

Suzanne Socki was the first local woman to finish in 44:16, followed by runner-up Laura Norman in 45:02 and Lucy Ching in third in 45:09.