Ethiopia’s Tigist Assefa smashed the women-only world record by 26
seconds at the TCS London Marathon, running 2:15:50* to win the World Athletics Platinum Label road race on Sunday (27).The
Olympic silver medallist kicked away from Kenya’s Joyciline Jepkosgei
to clinch her first London Marathon win after finishing second to Peres
Jepchirchir last year.
Jepchirchir’s winning mark of 2:16:16 a year ago had also been a
women-only world record and that is the mark Assefa improved, finishing
strongly to win by almost three minutes ahead of Jepkosgei (2:18:44).
Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands was third (2:19:00).
Given the strength of the field, the women-only world record was always
the target. With that in mind, the lead group of Jepkosgei, Assefa,
Hassan and Megertu Alemu followed the pacemakers through 5km in a
blistering 15:34 – not only inside the targeted 2:15 pace, but on
sub-2:12 rhythm.
The quartet maintained that pace through 10km, hitting that mark in
31:16. Assefa and Jepchirchir broke away by the halfway point, which
they passed in 1:06:40, 10 seconds ahead of Hassan.The
leading pair continued to move away from the rest of the field and
after 35km was reached in 1:52:12, Assefa made a break. A 5:03 24th mile
made the difference and by 40km Assefa was 56 seconds ahead.
She finished hard to stride over the finish line in 2:15:50 – the
third-fastest marathon of her career behind the 2:11:53 she ran to win
in Berlin in 2023, a mark that at the time was a world record for a
women’s marathon in a mixed race, and her 2:15:37 also from Berlin in
2022.
A short while later, the men’s race was won by Kenya’s Sabastian Sawe in
2:02:27 – the second-fastest ever London Marathon time. Uganda’s Jacob
Kiplimo was second on his marathon debut, clocking 2:03:37.
Assefa breaks women-only world marathon record with 2:15:50 in London
