On a light spring morning in Tokyo, Japan, greater than 30,000 runners took to the streets for the Tokyo Marathon, marking the graduation of this yr’s World Marathon Main sequence. Ethiopian runners topped the rostrum in each the lads’s and girls’s races, with Tadese Takele, final yr’s third-place finisher, and returning girls’s champion Sutume Asefa Kebede capturing the lads’s and girls’s titles in 2:03:23 and a pair of:16:30, respectively.
Males’s race
Takele’s successful time of two:03:23 marked a private greatest for the 22-year-old former steeplechaser, enhancing on his earlier greatest from his third-place end on the 2023 Berlin Marathon by one second.
The race began quick, with the lead pack hitting 5K in 14:25. By 28K, a lot of the frontrunners had dropped again, together with defending champion and course-record holder Benson Kipruto of Kenya, leaving Takele, fellow Ethiopian Deresa Geleta, and Kenya’s Vincent Kipkemoi Ngetich in rivalry. At 38K, Takele made his transfer, breaking away to safe the win. Geleta adopted in 2:03:51, with Ngetich taking third in 2:04:00.
Uganda’s Joshua Cheptegei, the world report holder in each the 5,000m and 10,000m, improved his marathon private greatest by three minutes, ending ninth with a time of two:05:59. This was Cheptegei’s second marathon after his 2023 debut in Valencia, the place he ran 2:08:59; on the pre-race press convention Cheptegei introduced that he was retiring from monitor to concentrate on the marathon.
Girls’s race
Kebede efficiently defended her Tokyo Marathon title in 2:16:30, turning into the primary back-to-back winner of the ladies’s race; Kebede additionally captured the course report in 2024, when she ran 2:15:55.
Kebede, 30, established an early lead, passing the 10K mark in a swift 31:22 and reaching the midway level at 1:06:20. Whereas her tempo slowed within the later phases of the race, she maintained a ample hole to safe the win. Kenya’s Winfridah Moraa Moseti completed second with a PB of two:16:56, and Ethiopia’s Hawi Feysa additionally impressed, securing third place and enhancing her PB to 2:17:00.
Former world marathon report holder, Nice Britain’s Paula Radcliffe, made her first return to the gap in a decade, crossing the road in 2:57:22. Radcliffe, 51, plans to run Boston six weeks from now to turn into a Six Star World Marathon Main finisher.
For full outcomes of the 2025 Tokyo Marathon, head right here.