BOSTON – Alevtina Biktimirova and Dire Tune matched wills nearly every step of the Boston Marathon. But as Tire pulled away over the final yards, it wasn’t Biktimirova’s will that failed her.

“I was fighting until the end,” Biktimirova said. “And in the end I just didn’t have enough speed.”

Tune won in 2 hours, 25 minutes, 25 seconds on Monday, beating Biktimirova by two seconds in the closest women’s race in Boston Marathon history.

The two ran shoulder to shoulder from Heartbreak Hill on, then exchanged the lead several times in the final stretch before Tune took control.

Robert Cheruiyot’s fourth Boston Marathon win wasn’t nearly as close, as the Kenyan broke from Abderrahime Bouramdane around the 19th mile and coasted to the sixth-fastest time in Boston Marathon history at 2 hours, 7 minutes, 46 seconds.

Tune and Biktimirova immediately separated from the pack with a group of 10 women who stuck together until about the 15th mile. The others gradually dropped away and by the 19th mile, only Tune and Biktimirova remained.

The pair seemed to be only getting stronger, running a 5:08 split at the 22nd mile. Tune tried to pull ahead with a few miles left, but Biktimirova stayed with her.

“I tried to run away from her for the last miles, but she’s very strong,” the 22-year-old Ethiopian said through a translator. “I was confident when I was not able to run away from her, I could save myself for the final kick.”

Tune, running her debut Boston Marathon, appeared to give up an edge when she nearly missed one of the final turns, but quickly recovered. After crossing the finish line, Tune fell to her knees and kissed the ground. Biktimirova ran Boston in 2006, when she finished sixth.

The previous closest women’s finish came two years ago, when Rita Jeptoo beat Jelena Prokopcuka by 10 seconds. Jeptoo, the 2006 champion, finished third this year, 69 seconds behind Tune.

Cheruiyot’s only competition was the clock in the race’s final miles. He repeatedly checked his watch as he ran alone, but Cheruiyot did not challenge the course record of 2:07:14 he set two years ago.

His problem: no one to race with.

“It’s very difficult when you’re running alone here in Boston,” he said. “You need company.”

Cheruiyot pulled away from a pack of four at the base of the Newton Hills, running the 19th mile in 4:37. It was Bouramdane’s first Boston Marathon, and he learned what thousands before him have come to understand.

“Up,” he said, “is the problem.”

Cheruiyot, though, has thrived on the hilly course. After crossing the finish line, he kissed the ground before standing up and counting off his four victories with an upraised arm.

“This was the hardest,” Cheruiyot said. “Boston is not a very easy course, it’s very difficult. (But) I enjoy running the hills.”

Cheruiyot’s third straight victory gave Kenya its 15th men’s title in 17 years; Kenyans also finished sixth through ninth. But Cheruiyot’s countrymen struggled more than usual overall, with just the one man in the top five – the fewest since 1992 – and one woman in the top 10.

Cheruiyot couldn’t say whether the performance was related to the postelection violence back home, in which some of his country’s top runners have been killed and threatened. Cheruiyot missed two months of training because of the unrest before his coach moved their camp to Namibia.

“My training has been going well despite the problems in Kenya,” he said. “When something happens, you have to forget and train.”

Bouramdane finished 1:18 back and fellow Moroccan Khalid El Boumlili came in third, another 1:31 back. Nicholas Arciniaga, of Rochester Hills, Mich., was 10th to give the Americans a top-10 finish for the fourth straight year.

The race came a day after the U.S. trials featured the top American women running for a berth in the Olympics. Deena Kastor, Magdalena Lewy Boulet and Blake Russell finished in the top three to make the U.S. team that will go to Beijing.

With the three new Olympians serving as grand marshals, more than 25,000 runners left Hopkinton under a cloudy but calm sky and temperatures in the 50s – a major improvement over last year’s rain and wind that threatened to scuttle the race.

Among those in the event’s second-largest field: cyclist Lance Armstrong and astronaut Sunita Williams, who ran a simulated Boston Marathon last year while in orbit on the International Space Station.