Everyone was curious to see what more Eliud Kipchoge would achieve at the Berlin Marathon this weekend, after having already proved that he was the best marathon runner with Olympic, world titles, and a world record already under his name.
As he has always done before, Kipchoge produced yet another thrilling performance to lower his world record from 2:01:39 to 2:01:09.
The pace just after the start of the race was fast, with only two other runners managing to go with Kipchoge and the three pace setters past the 3km point. The first 5K was crossed at 14:14. They then crossed the 10K point at 28:23.
The defending champion, Guye Adola, was the first to drop and suffer from hanging on to Kipchoge in the breakneck pace. But the other Ethiopian in the leading pack, Adamlak Belihu, held on to around the 26K mark when the gap slowly began to grow between him and Kipchoge. This was after the last pacesetter had stepped out at 25K.
After the pack of two had crossed the half marathon point in 59 minutes and 51 seconds, there were some hopes that perhaps we would finally see a historical time of under 2hrs for the marathon on an official marathon course, but the pace would begin to slow down a bit in the second half.
“I was planning to run 60:50 at halfway, but my legs ran a little faster,” Eliud Kipchoge said after the race.
Although he missed going under the 2hr mark, his achievement was enough to inspire the next generation to know that such a feat is possible with proper planning and execution.
As Belihu faded to fourth place due to the fast pace earlier in the race, Kenya’s Mark Korir would come in to finish second more than four minutes later in 2:05:58. Ethiopia’s Tadu Abate finished 3rd in 2:06:28.
The women’s race was well-paced in the first half with a predicted finish time averaging around 2:18. But, at around the 30K, there was a surge from Ethiopia’s Tigist Assefa that left a pack of five women who were still in contention to trail her in a single file.
Assefa went ahead to produce another historical time of 2:15:37, which became a new course record for the Berlin Marathon and the third fastest time in history. The only other two faster times are the past and current world record times by Paula Radcliffe (2:15:25 ) and Brigid Kosgei (2:14:04).
As the four runners just behind Assefa kept struggling in the end, Kenya’s Rosemary Wanjiru came strongly to finish in a fantastic time of 2:18:00, making her the fastest debutant in the women’s marathon event. Ethiopia’s Tigist Abayechew finished 3rd in 2:18:03.