Victories should lead to Olympic team berths
Lemma and Obiri make their cases with wins in Boston Marathon
Sisay Lemma of Ethiopia and Hellen Obiri of Kenya should be on the starting line for the men’s and women’s marathons, respectively, when those races are contested during the final two days of the Olympic Games in Paris in August.
That was obvious at the conclusion of the 128th edition of the Boston Marathon on Monday when Lemma won the men’s race with a 41-second margin over countryman Mohamed Esa — after holding a lead of nearly three minutes after 30 kilometers — and Obiri took the women’s contest by eight seconds after breaking away from compatriot Sharon Lokedi with less than a mile to go.
Lemma’s time of 2 hours 6 minutes 17 seconds was the second-fastest winning time in the Boston Marathon since Geoffrey Mutai set a course record of 2:03:02 in 2011 and it left him well clear of Esa in 2:06:58 and two-time defending champion Evans Chebet of Kenya in 2:07:22.
Obiri ran 2:22:37 to win her second consecutive Boston title — and third marathon in a row — while leading Kenya to a 1-2-3 finish as Lokedi placed second in 2:22:45 and two-time race winner Edna Kiplagat finished third in 2:23:21.
Lemma and Obiri are clearly two of the top marathon runners on the planet right now. But because they compete for the two strongest marathon nations in the world, neither country has finalized their respective Olympic team rosters in the event and they are not expected to do so until after April 30, which marks the end of the qualifying period for the Olympic marathon.
The 33-year-old Lemma entered Monday’s race as the fourth-fastest marathoner in history after running a winning 2:01:48 on the flat and fast course in Valencia, Spain, last December. But he had not run well in Boston in recent years, finishing 30th in 2:22:08 in 2019, and dropping out of the event in 2022.
Despite those bad experiences, he refused to run cautiously in his return engagement.
After leading a pack of about 10 runners though the first five kilometers in 14:21, Lemma ran the next five kilometers in 14:07 to take a 25-second lead over Chebet and the chase pack when he passed 10 kilometers in 28:28.
His lead had decreased slightly to 21 seconds when he came through 15 kilometers in 42:43, but it was a whopping minute and 39 seconds when he passed 20 kilometers in 57:13 after running the previous 10 kilometer-segment in 28:45.
His advantage then grew to a minute and 49 seconds when he came through the halfway point in 1:00:19 before it expanded to two minutes and 21 seconds when he clocked 1:11:44 at 25 kilometers and to two minutes and 49 seconds when he reached 30 kilometers in 1:26:56.
Lemma’s halfway split was 99 seconds faster than what Mutai had run during his 2:03:02 course record, and no doubt because of that, his lead began to shrink as he made his way through the portion of the course than has several challenging hills. Nonetheless, he still had a two-minute and 14-second advantage over the chase group of Chebet and fellow Kenyans John Korir and Albert Korir when he came through 35 kilometers in 1:42:56 after running the previous 5k segment in 16:00.
His lead had been slashed to a minute and a half over Chebet at 24 miles (38.6 kilometers) and Chebet and John Korir had reduced it by another eight seconds when Lemma passed 40 kilometers in 1:58:51 after running the previous five kilometers in 15:55.
However, Lemma, whose upper legs are noticeably more muscular than those of most elite East African marathon runners, never appeared to be in serious jeopardy of losing all of his lead, despite running his final 2.195 kilometers in 7:24, a pace of 16:52 for 5,000 meters.
Esa made up 52 seconds on Lemma after the 40-kilometer mark, but it was too little too late.
After Esa (2:06:58) and Chebet (2:07:22) came the unrelated tandem of John Korir in 2:07:40 and Albert Korir in 2:07:47.
Isaac Mpotu of Zimbabwe placed sixth in 2:08:17 and American CJ Albertson finished seventh in 2:09:53 following a fifth-place effort in the U.S. Olympic Team Trials race in Orlando, Florida, on Feb. 3.
“I previously didn’t finish in this race, so I wanted redemption for that, that’s why I came,” Lemma was quoted as saying through an interpreter in a World Athletics post. “Thankfully I was able to redeem myself, so I’m happy. My plan was to break the course record, but the hills at the end made me really tired.
“The reason I raced in Boston is because the course is similar to the Olympic one, so hopefully this will be good preparation for the Paris Games.”
The 34-year-old Obiri, who lives in Boulder, Colorado, with her husband and daughter while training with the On Athletics Club, had a stellar career on the track before focusing on the marathon.
She is a three-time Olympian who placed eighth in the 1,500 in the 2012 Olympic Games in London before winning silver medals in the 5,000 in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and in Tokyo in ‘21 after the quadrennial competition was postponed for a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
She also won a bronze medal in the 1,500 in the 2013 World Championships before winning 5,000-meter titles in 2017 and ’19, and a silver medal in the 10,000 in 2022.
She ran her first marathon in New York City in November of 2022. And after finishing sixth in that race when she faded in the final five kilometers, she won the Boston and New York City titles last year and entered Monday’s contest as the favorite.
In a contrast to the men’s race, no one pushed the early pace in the women’s contest.
A large lead pack of about 20 women went through the first five kilometers in 16:36 and the opening 10 kilometers in 33:27.
Things became even more pedestrian during the next 10 kilometers as 15 kilometers was passed in 50:58 and 20 kilometers went by in 1:08:42 after a 35:15 second 10,000-meter segment of the race.
After going through the halfway point in 1:12:33, the lead pack went through 25 kilometers in 1:26:05.
American Emma Bates, who had finished fifth in Boston last year before dealing with a pair of injuries since then, was three seconds ahead of the chase pack when she went through 30 kilometers in 1:43:27. But she was soon reeled in by the lead group and would end up finishing 12th in 2:27:14.
The lead pack was still sizeable when Obiri led it through 35 kilometers in 2:00:48. But it was a four-runner race for first amongst Obiri, 44-year-old Kiplagat, 2022 New York City champion Lokedi, and Ethiopian Workenesh Edesa at 23 miles in 2:07:06 and Obiri and Lokedi had a five-second lead over third-place Kiplagat when they came through 24 miles in 2:11:47 following a 4:41 mile, some of which was run on a downhill section of the course.
Obiri and Lokedi were together when they came through 40 kilometers in 2:15:54 — after running the previous 5k in a superb 15:06 — and they were still running stride for stride with a mile left in the race. But Obiri made a definitive move approximately 15 seconds after that and Lokedi had to grudgingly concede more and more ground to her countrywoman during the remainder of the race.
After Obiri (2:22:37), Lokedi (2:22:45) and Kiplagat (2:23:21), Ethiopians Buze Diribe and Senbere Teferi finished fourth and fifth, respectively, with identical times of 2:24:04. They were followed by Mary Ngugi of Kenya in 2:24:24 and Edesa in 2:24:47.
Although Obiri’s time was 59 seconds slower than she ran in last year’s race, she was delighted with her victory, which made her the first runner since Kenyan Catherine Ndereba in 2004 and ‘05 to repeat as the women’s champion.
“I knew that Sharon was very strong so I tried my best at the end,” Obiri said in the World Athletics post. “I tried to push, but she was still close behind me. To win here makes me so very happy.
“When I won here last year, I was not that familiar with the marathon. This year my training was perfect and I trusted everything we were doing.”
She then added that “Winning is something very precious to me. After winning here, I really hope I’ll be chosen to compete at the Olympics.”