There comes a point in every great sporting career when the story is no longer about the winning, only the losing. Eliud Kipchoge reached that point about seven miles from the finish of Monday’s 127th running of the Boston Marathon, the two-time Olympic champion and world record holder distanced from the lead group and then promptly broken.
The 38-year-old from Kenya, who came to Boston with a record of 17 marathons run, and only two lost, may or may not have been put off by the damp wet conditions. Either way he was a shadow of himself, fellow Kenyan and defending champion Evans Chebet taking the win in 2:05.54, becoming the first repeat men’s champion in Boston since another Kenyan, Robert Cheruiyot, in 2008. That earned him the top prize of $150,000. It was the third-fastest time in race history.
Since its inaugural edition in 1897, the Boston Marathon has seen almost everything, just not the collapse of such a heavy favourite as this. Kipchoge lost his legs and his focus around mile 19, ending up sixth in 2:09.23, his slowest marathon finish ever.
Without pacemakers, Kipchoge was forced to do most of the front-running from the midway stage. The 34-year-old Chebet still had Gabriel Geay from Tanzania for company but there was no denying him in the end as he added to his New York Marathon win last year. Geay followed for second in 2:06.04, with Benson Kipruto of Kenya finishing third in 2:06.06.
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In this his Boston debut, it’s perhaps not entirely a coincidence that Kipchoge’s last marathon loss came in London in similar rainy conditions.
On another red letter day for marathon running, in the women’s race Kenyan Hellen Obiri took the win in 2:21.38, pulling away from Ethiopian Amane Beriso in the last mile. It completed a unique CV of athletics wins for Obiri, a two-time world champion and two-time Olympic medallist in the 5000m on the track, who made her marathon debut in New York City last November with a sixth-place finish. She was a late addition to the Boston field three weeks ago.
It was almost 10 years to the day since Kipchoge won his debut marathon in Hamburg in 2:05.30. Since then he has won in Berlin and London four times, claimed two Olympic titles, improved the world record to 2:01.09 and dipped inside the “impossible” two-hour barrier in Vienna, an unofficial marathon course.
There was the question of how his legs would handle the undulating Boston course, which drops 310 feet in the first four miles, climbs 200 feet between miles 16 and 21 (with a few downhills thrown in), then drops another 200 feet to the finish.
On the day, and given the conditions, there was certainly no touching Geoffrey Mutai’s 2:03.02 course record, set back in 2011.
For Chebet, everything about the time was right. He didn’t win any of his first 10 marathons, before a 2:05.00 win in Buenos Aires in 2019. Since then he has won five of his last six marathons, including Valencia (2:03.00 in 2020), Boston (2:06.51 in 2022), and New York (2:08.41 in 2022).
Marcel Hug of Switzerland won the men’s wheelchair race in a course record time, his sixth victory in Boston, while American Susannah Scaroni won her first Boston title despite having to stop early in the race to tighten her wheel.
For the first time, the race also includes a nonbinary division, with 27 athletes registered.
