WTW: Berlin Marathon Breakdown + Boulder Has A New Big Race
By Robert JohnsonMost weeks, we try to make the sport more fun to follow by putting the prior week’s action in perspective for you. If you missed our coverage of the 2024 Athlos NYC meet, catch that here as we don’t talk about that below.
Also this week, since it was such a big one in terms of NCAA cross country, we have a separate article breaking that down by Jonathan Gault: LRC College XC Roundup: Big 12 Powers Impress, Meet Sadie Sigfstead & Ed Bird, and Is Stanford Back?
Past editions of our Week That Was weekly recap can be found here. If you like our written weekly recap, you’ll love our weekly Track Talk Podcast as well.
Got a tip, question or comment? Please call us at 844-LETSRUN (538-7786), email us, or post in our forum.
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Ethiopians Take Home Berlin Marathon Wins
On Sunday in the first Abbott World Marathon Major of the fall and in the 50th running of the Berlin Marathon, Ethiopians took home the two wins — marking the fifth straight year an Ethiopian woman has won in Berlin (Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge had won the last two men’s Berlins before Sunday).
2019 world U20 XC champ Milkesa Mengesha (should we call him the Jakob Ingebrigtsen slayer as he beat Jakob by 47 seconds in their only career meeting?) won the men’s race in a big pb of 2:03:17. His previous pb was from 2022 Valencia, where he ran 2:05:29 for 7th. The 24-year-old Mengesha also won Daegu last year (2:06:49) and finished 6th at Worlds before dropping out late in London in 2024.
Mengesha won by five seconds over 32-year-old Kenyan Cybrian Kotut, as the former Paris and Hamburg champ PR’d by 1:12 after finishing 9th in Boston in the spring. Between Mengesha, Kotut, Haymanot Alewe (2:03:31), and Stephen Kiprop (2:03:37), four men broke 2:04 in Berlin for the first time ever. The fastest entrant in the field, 22-year-old Tadese Takele (2:03:24 from last year’s Berlin), was 7th in 2:05:13. Takele was the World U20 silver medalist in the steeple in 2021 (8:09.37 pb) but has very quickly moved to the roads.
Takele finished one second behind Japan’s Yohei Ikeda, who ran the #2 time in Japanese history of 2:05:12 (their NR is 2:04:56) after going out in 62:25. Entering the race, the 26-year-old, who is coached by former Asian record holder Toshinara Takaoka (2:06:16 for 3rd in Chicago in 2002), had a 2:06:53 pb from his debut in Osaka last year.
Former half marathon WR holder Kibiwott Kandie, the 28-year-old Kenyan who ran 26:58 at Pre this year, once again failed to master the marathon as he was 13th in 2:06:46. Kandie has now finished three marathons, and while he has a pb of 2:04:48 (6th in Valencia in 2023), he’s never finished higher than 6th in any 26.2-mile race.
The men’s race was deep as 14 men broke 2:07 and 22 men broke 2:08. Only one race has had more than 22 men break 2:08. In Valencia last year, 28 men ran under 2:08. The 14 sub-2:07s is the third-most of any marathon ever, trailing 2023 Valencia, which had 17 and last year’s Berlin, where 15 men broke 2:06. Last year’s Berlin race set the record for fastest finishers in places 8 through 15.
The much shallower Berlin women’s race was dominated, as expected, by the fastest debutante in history, Tigist Ketema of Ethiopia. The 26-year-old, is the latest Ethiopian to move up from the 800 (2016 world junior bronze, 2:02 pb) to the marathon as she won Dubai in a debut record of 2:16:07 in January. She then finished 7th in London before winning her first WMM in Berlin on Sunday by running 2:16:42 to win by 2:18. Three women broke 2:20 on the day: Paris winnner Mestawot Fikir, 24, PR’d by 1:47 in her second career marathon to take 2nd in 2:18:48 while Bosena Mulatie completed the Ethiopian 1-2-3 by finishing 3rd in 2:19:00. In her first race of 2024, 2015 world 1500 champ Genzebe Dibaba (2:18:05 pb), dropped out after hitting halfway in 70:44.
More: Mengesha and Ketema claim Berlin Marathon crowns | REPORTS | World Athletics
*Big Japanese Results in Berlin (japanrunningnews.blogspot.com)
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Berlin By The Numbers
Behind the winners, the 50th edition of the BWM Berlin Marathon was a grand success as 54,280 people finished the race. Not only did that smash the previous Berlin record of 43,990 from 2019 (43,050 finished Berlin in 2023), it was the most finishers of any marathon in history, surpassing the 54,175 finishers from the 2024 Paris Marathon. Berlin, which celebrated its 1 millionth finisher last year, has now seen 1,057,611 run its 50 races, for an average of 21,152 per race — a figure Berlin only hit once in its first 26 editions (1990 had 22,806 finishers).
The last 10 years of Berlin have seen an average of 38,060 finishers and that counts 2021, which was greatly impacted by COVID. Berlin was the first Abbott World Marathon Major to return with a mass race, and they did it with major safety measures and a reduced number of runners (23,103).
Historically, 78.75% of the finishers have been male, 21.24% female and 0.01% non-binary. This year’s race featured the highest percentage of female finishers — 34.2%.
I’d never thought much about the male-female ratio before so I calculated it for all of the most recent Abbott World Marathon Majors. Here are the results.
| Male / Female Ratio of World Marathon Majors | ||
| Race | Male | Female |
| Chicago | 53.1% | 46.5% |
| New York | 55.4% | 44.4% |
| London* | 56.9% | 43.0% |
| Boston | 57.1% | 42.8% |
| Berlin | 65.6% | 34.3% |
| Tokyo | 75.3% | 24.7% |
*London figure was based on entrants, not finishers.
Berlin also had runners from 161 different countries (I’m guessing that is a record) — super impressive as that is 82.6% of the 195 countries in existence and the most of the recent World Marathon Majors.
| Race | # of Countries Represented |
| 2024 Berlin | 161 |
| 2024 London | 152 |
| 2024 Chicago | 143 |
| 2023 New York | 142 |
| 2024 Boston | 129* |
| 2024 Tokyo** | ?? |
*Boston’s press release says they had residents of 118 countries but citizens of 129 run their race.
**We’ve reached out to Tokyo to try to see what the number is as we couldn’t find it.
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Boulderthon Attracts Names in Colorado
Considering a Diamond League 5,000 win nets you $10,000, when a 5k road race offers a potential $15,000 payday, you know you are going to attract some talent. That’s what happened last week at the Boulderthon Presented by Puma in Boulder, Colorado. First place was $5,000 but there was a $10,000 bonus for anyone breaking the state records of 13:31.27 & 15:44.20 — which isn’t easy to achieve at 5,430 feet of altitude.
No one got the records but the race did attract some names. 2023 NCAA 10,000 champ Everlyn Kemboi of Kenya won the women’s race by 17 seconds and just missed the big bonus as she ran 15:50. 2017 steeple world champ Emma Coburn‘s comeback from her ankle injury continued as she ran 16:11 for third.
In the men’s race, Eritrea’s national record holder in the steeplechase Yemane Haileselassie (8:11.22 pb), who also is a two-time Olympic finalist (11th in 2016, 5th in 2021) was nowhere near the record as he won the men’s race in 13:58 by two seconds over compatriot Tsegay Tuemay (2:09:07 marathon pb).
It was Haileselassie’s 10th race of the year and all of them have been in the US so we are assuming he’s US-based and are wondering if he’s in the process of obtaining US citizenship (if you know, email us).
In just its 4th year of existence, Boulderthon drew nearly 10,000 entrants between its 5k, 10k, half and marathon, up nearly 40% from last year and making it the most popular running event in the fall in Colorado. Canadian Olympian Rory Linkletter won the men’s half in 1:04:45 while guest appearances were made by Kara Goucher, Dakotah Lindwurm, and Molly Seidel.
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That’s it for this week’s WTW, which is shorter than normal, but that’s only because we gave the NCAA XC analysis its own article. Check that one out now: LRC College XC Roundup: Big 12 Powers Impress, Meet Sadie Sigfstead & Ed Bird, and Is Stanford Back?
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Last Week’s Home Pages
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