World record in marathon falls in Berlin
Kipchoge slashes 30 seconds from his world best, Assefa stuns with third-fastest women's time in history
How fast can Eliud Kipchoge run in a marathon if he ever runs a perfect race?
I wondered that after watching – via a subscription streaming service – the 37-year-old Kenyan run a world record of 2 hours 1 minute and 9 seconds in winning the men’s division of the Berlin Marathon this morning.
His time cut 30 seconds off the previous world record that he set in winning in Berlin in 2018, but the two-time Olympic champion admitted in a post-race interview that “we ran too fast” for the first half of the race, which led to him uncharacteristically running nearly a minute and a half slower during the second half of the event.
Mark Korir of Kenya placed second in 2:05:58, followed by Tadu Abate of Ethiopia in 2:06:28.
In contrast to Kipchoge on the men’s side, unheralded Ethiopian Tigist Assefa – running her second-ever marathon – picked up the pace during the second half of her race and won the women’s division in a stunning 2:15:37 to move to third on the all-time world performer list and improve her previous best by more than 18 minutes.
Rosemary Wanjiru of Kenya, running in her first marathon, placed second in 2:18:00 to move to 15th on the all-time performer list. Tigist Abayechew of Ethiopia placed third in 2:18:03 to move to 16th.
Although Kipchoge had been careful not to mention the words “world record” during the week leading up to the race, he had said he was in shape to run a personal best over the Berlin course that is regarded as one of the fastest – if not the fastest – in the world. And for Kipchoge, setting a personal best would mean setting a world record.
That desire to run super fast, combined with cool temperatures (12 degrees celsius, 54 degrees fahrenheit) and overcast skies at race time, led to a trio of Kenyan pacesetters taking Kipchoge and Ethiopians Guye Adola and Andamlak Belihu through the first 10 kilometers in 28:23.
However, defending champion Adola had fallen four seconds off the pace when the lead pack came through 15 kilometers in 42:33, and he was more than a minute behind when the leaders went through 20 kilometers in 56:45 after they had run the previous five kilometers in 14:12.
The hyper-fast – some would say insane – pace continued through the halfway point of the race in 59:51, but things began to slow ever so slightly after that as the last remaining pacesetter and Kipchoge passed 25 kilometers in 1:11:08 with Belihu a second behind him.
The pacesetter pulled off the course shortly after that and Belihu, who would eventually finish fourth in 2:06:40, began to lose contact with Kipchoge. He trailed the Kenyan great by 31 seconds when Kipchoge came through 30 kilometers in 1:25:40, and he was more than two minutes behind him when Kipchoge passed the 35-kilometer mark in 1:40:10 (14:30).
Although Kipchoge was motoring away from everyone in the field at that point, his pace slowed – which is a relative term here – to 14:43 for the next five kilometers. He then ran the final 2.19 kilometers of the race in 6:16 to record his 17th victory in 19 career marathons and give himself four of the top five times in history and five of the top 13.
Kipchoge allowed himself a brief smile as he passed 41 kilometers before clapping his hands together, pounding his chest with his right hand, and raising his arms in victory in his final strides as he averaged a little more than 4:37.2 per mile for the 26-mile, 385-yard distance while winning the Berlin Marathon for a record-tying fourth time.
Despite his supreme, energy-sapping effort, the gregarious Kipchoge was taking a victory lap of sorts while waving a Kenyan flag a minute after finishing the race. He then stopped to conduct a brief interview before high-fiving some spectators.
When asked later if it was possible for him to run faster in the future, Kipchoge smiled and said, “In my legs, there’s still more.”
While Kipchoge has stamped himself as the greatest men’s marathon runner in history, the 28-year-old Assefa was running in only the second marathon of her career this morning.
She had run 2:34:01 in her marathon debut in March to finish seventh in a race in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
She then posted personal bests of 1:07:28 in the half marathon in April and 30:52 in a 10-kilometer road race in June. But neither of those performances would have led anyone to predict what she did today in running a time that has been bettered only by Brigid Kosgei of Kenya, who ran 2:14:04 in Chicago in 2019, and by Paula Radcliffe of Great Britain, who ran 2:15:25 in London in 2003.
“I’m very happy today for what I got in my results,” Assefa said through a translator.
Unlike the men’s race, there was no heavy favorite in the women’s event.
Keira D’Amato of the U.S., who had set an American record of 2:19:12 in winning the Houston Marathon in January, had the fastest time in the field. But there were several others who had run under 2:21 and Wanjiru was making her marathon debut after finishing 10th in the World Half Marathon Championships in 2020 and fourth in the 10,000 in the World Athletics Championships in Doha, Qatar, in 2019.
Vibian Chepkurui of Kenya, who had run a personal best of 2:20:59 in winning the Vienna Marathon in April, and Assefa were at the front of the lead pack of women when they passed 10 kilometers in 32:36 and 20 kilometers in 1:04:43 (32:07). The two of them were still leading when they came through the halfway point in 1:08:13, with Abayechew a second behind them and Wanjuri four seconds back.
D'Amato, who had finished eighth in the World Championships in Eugene, Oregon, in July after stepping in to replace injured Olympic bronze medalist Molly Seidel two weeks before the race, was at 1:09:27 at that point and would finish sixth in 2:21:48.
Chepkurui and Assefa continued to lead through 25 kilometers in 1:20:48 (16:05), but Assefa and Abayechew were more than 15 seconds ahead of Wanjiru and Chepkurui when they came through 30 kilometers in 1:36:41 (15:53).
Assefa broke the race open in the next five kilometers as her 15:46 clocking over that portion of the course gave her a 19-second lead over Abayechew when she passed 35 kilometers in 1:52:27.
Although her pace slowed to 16:15 over the next five kilometers, she was nearly a minute and a half clear of second-place Wanjuri when she came through 40 kilometers in 2:08:42. She became the 51st woman in history to break two hours and 20 minutes in the marathon when she crossed the finish line after running the second half of the race 49 seconds faster than the first half.
Assefa’s time crushed the previous course record of 2:18:11 set by Gladys Cherono of Kenya in 2018 and had folks like me conducting some online research to find out more about her.
She appears to have started out as a 400-meter sprinter who ran 54.05 in 2012 when she was 18. She then ran 2:01.25 in the 800 in 2013 and a personal best of 1:59.24 in 2014. She ran in the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, but did not advance to the semifinals when she finished fifth in 2:00.21 in a first-round heat.
“My preparation was very fantastic,” she said about her breakthrough performance. “I did what I need. My training was really fantastic.”
The Berlin Marathon was the first of a several high-profile marathons that are scheduled to be held during the next 10 weeks.
The London Marathon will be held next Sunday, followed by marathons in Chicago on Oct. 9, Amsterdam on Oct. 16, Frankfurt, Germany, on Oct. 30, New York City on Nov. 6, and Valencia, Spain, on Dec. 4.
