After the slow and often stagnant evolution of the Irish marathon record, Fearghal Curtin has sped things up considerably by winning the Gyeongju International Marathon in South Korea.
Curtin impressed on several fronts – his time of 2:07:54 taking almost two minutes off the previous mark of 2:09:36 set by Peter Lynch last April - and his bold front-running tactics paid off handsomely as he broke the Irish men’s marathon record for only the sixth time in the last 45 years.
Three of those records have now come within the last 12 months, and Curtin’s time brings it into championship-winning territory. That mark would have won gold at all but two Olympic marathons (2024 and 2008), and is notably faster than the 2:09:48 which won the gold medal for Alphonce Simbu from Tanzania at last month’s World Championships in Tokyo.
Saturday’s event in Gyeongju is South Korea’s only World Athletics elite level marathon.
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Staged since 2007, Curtin is the first non-Kenyan/Ethiopian to win, and despite being ranked only 15th on the start list, he’d almost three minutes to spare on second-placed Antanayehu Yisma from Ethiopia (2:10:35), with Raymond Choge from Kenya third in 2:11:07.
Running in the vest of his club Youghal AC in east Cork, the 27-year-old hit the front from the gun and never looked back. He was over 30 seconds up on the elite chasing group at 10km, which he passed in 30:52. After reaching 20km in 61:34, he then produced a faster second half of the race - that negative split key to championship races.
Curtin also earned himself a tidy $50,000 (€42,880), having deliberately targeted the South Korean event due to the hilly course and warm conditions – just like the Los Angeles Olympic marathon in 2028, where Curtin hopes his progression will get him there as a possible contender.
He finished well within himself, targeting the Singapore Marathon in early December next.
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“My goal within the next three years is to get down to 2:05, 2:06, because that’s Olympic standard,” he said. “And it was clear to me if I wanted to make Olympics or worlds, it was going to be on the road.”
Curtin also follows the recent trend of Irish marathon runners by committing to the 26.2-mile distance at a relatively young age. Lynch is also 27, running the previous Irish record of 2:09:36 to win in Düsseldorf in April, where Curtin finished 10th on his debut.
At the 2024 Dublin Marathon last October, Hiko Tonosa ran 2:09:42 to finish third overall. Before that, Stephen Scullion ran 2:09:49 in London in 2020, breaking the long-standing Irish record of 2:09:56 set by John Treacy in 1984 when winning the silver medal in the LA Olympics.
Treacy did run 2:09:15 in the 1988 Boston Marathon, but that doesn’t count for record purposes due to the net downhill gradient of the Boston course (even though the Boston course is far from easy).
Now based in Portugal, Curtin trained at altitude in Arizona throughout the summer, before running 60:22 in the Copenhagen half marathon last month, taking down the Irish record of 60:51 jointly held by Tonosa and Efrem Gidey.
By his own admission, he didn’t quite have the leg speed to breakthrough on the track, despite making decent progress when following the US scholarship route, first to Arizona State University, then at Charleston Southern and Florida State.
His roots run strong in Youghal AC, where parents Noel and Geraldine have been long-time coaches in the club, with Curtin first winning All-Ireland medals in cross-country at under-11, when still in primary school in Killeagh.
One of the first things Lynch said in April was that he didn’t expect his record to last for long. Lynch went on to finish 24th in the World Championships in Tokyo, and will next run a spring marathon with an obvious new target in mind.
Meanwhile, at the autumn international cross-country at Abbotstown, Fiona Everard scored an impressive win the women’s race, the Bandon AC athlete getting the better of England’s India Barwell by 13 seconds, before Callum Morgan of Candour Track Club won the men’s race, 11 seconds clear of William Fitzgerald from Craughwell AC.
Irish men’s marathon record progression
2:12:21: Louis Kenny, Rocket City Marathon, Alabama – December 1980
2:09:56: John Treacy, Los Angeles Olympics – August 1984
2:09:49: Stephen Scullion, London Marathon – October 2020
2:09:42: Hiko Tonosa, Dublin Marathon – October 2024
2:09:36: Peter Lynch, Düsseldorf Marathon – April 2025
2:07:54: Fearghal Curtin, Gyeongju International Marathon – October 2025
