Defending champion Hellen Obiri of Kenya sprinted down Boylston Road to say her second Boston win in a row on Monday, breaking the tape in 2:22:37, along with her good friend and teammate, 2022 New York Metropolis Marathon champion Sharon Lokedi following her onto the rostrum in 2:22:45. Two-time Boston champion Edna Kiplagat (2017 and 2021) completed a powerful third, in 2:23:21.
Monday’s Boston Marathon elite ladies’s race was like a repeat of final 12 months’s New York Metropolis Marathon, when Obiri and Lokedi battled by way of Central Park with Ethiopia’s Letesenbet Gidey. On Monday, Obiri pulled away from Lokedi simply previous the 40K mark, and by no means seemed again.
“It’s laborious to defend your title–I didn’t hand over,” Obiri stated after the race. “I saved telling myself that my household was watching, and I knew the Olympics had been on the road.” Obiri is the primary girl to win back-to-back Boston Marathons since Katherine Ndereba of Kenya, who received in 2004 and 2005. (Ndereba additionally received in 2000, 2001 and 2002.) Obiri is the sixth girl with back-to-back Boston wins. That is her third marathon win in a row, and can undoubtedly cement her choice for the Kenyan nationwide workforce for the Paris Olympics in August.
Lokedi was a late scratch in 2023; this was her first look in Boston. Lokedi completed third ultimately 12 months’s New York Metropolis Marathon.
Obiri and Lokedi’s run alongside Commonwealth Avenue got here after a really tactical race that noticed a pack of round 20 ladies operating collectively for for much longer than we often see in marathons. Contemplating a superb variety of them count on to race the Olympic marathon in somewhat over three months from now, none appeared occupied with working any more durable than completely crucial, and sat patiently within the pack till the ultimate levels.
This couldn’t have been in starker distinction to the boys’s elite race, which was dominated nearly from the beginning by Ethiopia’s Sisay Lemma, and who ran solo to victory. The U.S.’s Emma Bates, who was the highest American at Boston final 12 months, ending fifth, led the pack for a lot of the race; she was the highest American once more this 12 months, ending thirty first.
For full outcomes of the 128th Boston Marathon, click on right here.
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