SYDNEY, August 10, 2008 (AFP) - An Australian runner has won Sydney's City to Surf race for the first time in 11 years, with Martin Dent taking the 14-kilometre (8.7 mile) fun run here Sunday.

Dent, a 29-year-old public servant from Canberra who competed in the steeplechase at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, is the first Australian to win the race from the city centre to Bondi Beach since 1997.

'It's the biggest race in Australia and to be the first over the line is amazing,' Dent, who ran a time of 41 minutes and 12 seconds, told Australian news agency AAP.

Fellow Australian Michael Shelley, 24, was second with a time of 41:24.

Tanzanian runners Patrick Nyangelo and Dickson Marwa have between them won the last five City to Surf races but neither was running in Sunday's event.

Nineteen-year-old Sydney resident Rebecca Lowe, a member of the University of Florida's track and cross country team, won the women's race in 47:18.

The run was marred by tragedy, with a 26-year-old man dying after suffering an apparent heart attack about 200m from the finish line, reports said.