As many people nonetheless sit in awe of the ladies’s race on the 2024 Boston Marathon, it’s straightforward to neglect that there’s one other Abbott World Marathon Main this weekend in London. The race will probably be simply as necessary because the final, with girls’s marathon world document holder, Ethiopia’s Tigist Assefa, headlining a particularly deep girls’s area, with excessive stakes, Olympic choice and probably a world document on the road.
“I actually suppose I’m able to going below two hours and ten minutes.”
Ladies’s world marathon record-holder Tigist Assefa has even additional ambitions after operating 2:11:53 in Berlin final season 🔥
Forward of her @LondonMarathon debut, she states she will even go sub-2:10 at some… pic.twitter.com/4vbcNuaDdl
— AW (@AthleticsWeekly) April 18, 2024
For Assefa, this will probably be her fourth profession marathon and her first time operating a significant not named Berlin. Assefa has gained the final two editions of the Berlin Marathon, setting unprecedented instances in each victories–2:15:37 (2022) and her world document, 2:11:53 (2023). The most important questions for Assefa from journalists at Thursday’s press convention was what kind of form she was in and the way she’s going to fare on the London course.
“Whether or not it’s Berlin or London, my technique stays the identical,” stated Assefa. “I got here to London to win, and I’m in document form.”
The ladies’s area is concentrating on the women-only marathon world document of two:17:02, set by Mary Keitany on the 2017 London Marathon. (The ladies-only class refers to a race the place girls run with none male athletes in competitors or as pacers, which is the case in London, since men and women begin at completely different instances.
The ladies’s area is loaded with expertise, together with the reigning Olympic champion, Peres Jepchirchir, and the previous world document holder, Brigid Kosgei. Apart from Assefa, Kosgei will probably be one of many favourites, beforehand successful the London Marathon twice (in 2019 and 2020). Since then, her greatest marathon main end was a 2:16:02 in Tokyo in 2022, and most just lately, a fourth-place end on the New York Metropolis Marathon final November.
As beforehand famous, the stakes are excessive for Jepchirchir and Kosgei, with Olympic workforce choice on the road. A win right here in London may go a great distance, cementing an athlete’s spot on Workforce Kenya for Paris. There’s added stress for each girls to carry out, with Hellen Obiri and Sharon Lokedi going one-two on the Boston Marathon final weekend. All 4 girls, plus former world champion Ruth Chepngetich are on the shortlist for potential choice. The deadline for nationwide sporting organizations to pick their marathon groups is Might 5.
There are not any Canadian elites on this yr’s London Marathon girls’s area, with Malindi Elmore now shifting her focus to Paris, and others racing within the subsequent couple of weeks to chase the Olympic commonplace of two:26:50.
Exterior of the favourites, the Ethiopian trio of Yalemzerf Yehualaw (2:17:23), Tigist Ketema (2:16:07) and Megertu Alemu (2:17:09) are three athletes who may steal the win from their compatriot Assefa. Yehualaw, the present girls’s 10K world document holder, has beforehand gained London (in 2022) and has the legs to bounce the favourites within the closing levels. For Yehualaw, London can be a chance to impress the Ethiopian Olympic choice committee just some weeks earlier than they’ve to choose their workforce for Paris.
How you can watch
In case you are seeking to stream the 2024 London Marathon from Canada on Sunday, the race will solely be out there on FloTrack. The elite wheelchair races will start at 4:15 a.m. ET, adopted by the elite girls’s race at 4:30 a.m. ET and the boys’s race and mass begin at 5:00 a.m. ET.
