Tigst Assefa of Ethiopia secured her first London Marathon title Sunday after pulling away from Joyciline Jepkosgei near the end.
Assefa finished in an unofficial time of 2 hours, 15 minutes, 50 seconds, the fastest ever in a women’s-only marathon but 25 seconds slower than the course record set by Paula Radcliffe in 2003 when it was a mixed race.
The previous women’s-only record of 2:16:16 was set last year in London by Peres Jepchirchir.
Kenya’s Sabastian Sawe won the men’s race in his major marathon debut, finishing in an unofficial time of 2:02:29.
Assefa, 28, finished second both in London and at the Paris Olympics last year but adds this title to two Berlin Marathon wins.
Unlike in Paris, she made sure there would be no sprint finish this time as she left Jepkosgei behind with a few kilometers left and ran alone along the Thames and through central London to the finish in front of Buckingham Palace.
Jepkosgei, the 2021 London winner, was almost three minutes back in 2:18:44. Olympic champion Sifan Hassan was third.
It was a Swiss double in the wheelchair events, with Marcel Hug racing to his sixth London Marathon title in 1:25:25 and Catherine Debrunner winning her third women’s title in four years in 1:34:18, missing her own world record by two seconds.
A world-record 56,000 runners were expected to participate in the 26.2-mile race that started at Greenwich Park and snaked along the Thames before finishing on The Mall.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
