Peres Jepchirchir outsprints Tigst Assefa to win dramatic 2025 World Championship marathon

TOKYO (14-Sep) — After two hours, 24 minutes and 30 seconds the women’s marathon at the 20th World Athletics Championships here had yet to be decided.  Two of the best marathoners in history, 2021 Olympic champion Peres Jepchirchir of Kenya and 2024 Olympic silver medalist Tigist Assefa of Ethiopia, had entered National Stadium with barely any daylight between them.  It was anyone’s race.

“I was so exhausted,” Jepchirchir told reporters when asked to talk about the final 300 meters of the race on the track.

Assefa made the first move, passing her Kenyan rival on the backstretch, but she did not shake her.  Jepchirchir stayed on her heels and tried to gather the strength for just one more push forward after running nearly 42 kilometers in hot and very humid conditions.

“At 100 meters when I saw the finishing line… let me try if I’m going to win,” Jepchirchir said she told herself.  “Thank God that I managed.”

Rounding the final bend Jepchirchir shot ahead of Assefa who, despite being a former Olympic 800-meter runner with a 1:59.24 personal best, had no answer.  Spreading her arms, Jepchirchir sailed through the finish line to win her first world marathon title (and her fourth overall world title) in 2:24:43.  She had also won the world half-marathon title three times.

“I feel grateful,” said Jepchirchir, who thought of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games even though the marathon was held in Sapporo.  “I feel good memories here; I was not expecting that.  I love Tokyo.”

Assefa crossed two seconds later to take the silver, a bittersweet result for the former world record holder.

“I guessed that it would be all about a sprint in the last 100 meters,” she told the flash quotes team after the race.  “It was the same at Paris Olympics when I also finished second and lost to Sifan (Hassan).  But I don’t like to think I lost gold. I always try to be positive and think that I won the silver.”

How those two women arrived to the stadium together is a tale of two races.  For the first 28 kilometers, American Susanna Sullivan ran alone through the streets of Tokyo.  The main contenders were content to stay together and not push the pace, and Sullivan just wanted to stretch her legs and run her own race.  By the 10-K mark (34:21) Sullivan only had teammate Jessica McClain for company, and by 15-K she was 21 seconds ahead of McClain and 25 seconds ahead of the main pack.  Her lead over the main group would peak at 63 seconds at the 20-K point.

“The whole time when I was in the front I was just reminding myself that they are going to come back,” Sullivan said.  “You have to run your own race and you can’t panic.”

McClain was rolled up by Jepchirchir, Assefa, Sutume Asefa Kebede of Ethiopia, Stella Chesang of Uganda, Magdalyne Masai of Kenya in the 26th kilometer.  That group caught Sullivan, who had been on pace for a 2:25:00 finish, at the 28-K point.

“When they went by I kept it together,” said Sullivan, who maintained her pace.

It was at this point that the second race started.  Assefa and Jepchirchir quickly pulled away from the others and proceeded to run from 30-K to the stadium side by side.  They took drinks and soaked themselves with cold towels and sponges as they went, trying to stay cool.  Like two gunfighters facing each other in an old western, the tension built and built until that final circuit of the track.

But the biggest surprise of the race would come later when Julia Paternain –a novice marathoner representing Uruguay who lives and trains in Flagstaff, Ariz.– tiptoed through the field from 15th position at 25-K, to tenth place at 30-K, to sixth place at 35-K.  Paternain, who was born in Mexico but grew up in Great Britain before having a collegiate running career at Penn State and the University of Arkansas, moved into third position in the 39th kilometer.  She had no idea where she was in the running order.

“I had no clue,” Paternain told reporters.  “Around halfway there was a pack of maybe ten or 15 women ahead of me, and slowly that pack started to break up.  I was just trying to make sure that my miles were consistent.  I knew if I stayed consistent that everyone around me could do what they wanted.”

Paternain, who was running just her second marathon, entered the stadium a clear third and won the bronze medal in 2:27:23, the first-ever medal for a Uruguayan athlete at the World Athletics Championships.  She did not realize that she made the podium, and wasn’t even sure if she needed to do an additional lap inside of the stadium.

“I could not believe it when I crossed that finish line,” she said.  “I had no idea I was in third.  I also wasn’t sure that was the finish line; I wanted to make sure.  I was in so much shock.  I truly cannot believe it.”

Sullivan finished fourth in 2:28:17, followed by Finland’s Alisa Vaino in fifth (2:28:32).  McClain, who had run with Sullivan in the early kilometers, finished eighth in 2:29:20.  Masai, who was contending for a medal late in the race, was forced to drop out.

A total of 63 women finished the race out of 73 starters, about the same as the 65 who finished in Budapest two years ago.  The men’s marathon will be contested here tomorrow morning on the same course.

*Full results

Quick Takes by LetsRun.com’s Jonathan Gault

Peres Jepchirchir shows her mettle once again as Tigst Assefa is outkicked for the second straight championships

In miserably hot and humid conditions (temps in the 80s, with a dew point in the mid-70s), the ending of the women’s World Championship marathon very much resembled the conclusion of last year’s Olympic marathon in Paris. And once again, Ethiopia’s Tigst Assefa once again found herself outsprinted by one of the sport’s all-time greats.

Last year, it was Sifan Hassan kicking away from Assefa in the final quarter mile at Les Invalides in one of the most exciting Olympic finishes in history. On Sunday, it was Peres Jepchirchir, who deployed her fabled kick to claim yet another major victory in her incredible career. Even after Assefa passed Jepchirchir on the back straight after the pair entered the stadium together, Jepchirchir wasn’t licked. Her form was ragged, her teeth were gritted, and Jepchirchir looked as if she had nothing left to give. 

But Jepchirchir is one of distance running’s great champions and fiercest racers, one who has made her career on kicking to the win in big marathons. She dug deep and did it once again on Sunday and now has the following victories on her resume:

-Valencia Marathon (2020)
-Olympic Marathon (2021)
-NYC Marathon (2021)
-Boston Marathon (2022)
-London Marathon (2024)
-World Championships Marathon (2025)
-World Half Marathon (2016, 2020, 2023)

Jepchirchir is not undefeated in close marathons – she was outsprinted by Sifan Hassan in Hassan’s famous 2023 London Marathon win – but she is very, very tough to beat. She won NYC by five seconds, Boston by four, London by seven, and now Worlds by two. She is not someone you want next to you in the home stretch.

Assefa, meanwhile, is developing the opposite reputation as this was the third time she has been outkicked for the win in her last four marathons. In addition to today and the Olympics, Hassan was also outsprinted by Jepchirchir at the 2024 London Marathon. Though it is perhaps unfair to say Assefa doesn’t have a kick; she just happens to be going up against two of the best women we’ve ever seen in the marathon.

There was some controversy about Jepchirchir’s win as members of the Kenyan support team provided fluids to her outside of the official zones. Kenya was issued a yellow card, which meant a second violation would trigger a disqualification. But nothing more came of it; several countries, including the US, filed a protest, but all were denied.

Julia Paternain: three passports, one green card…and now a bronze medal

While gold and silver in the women’s marathon went to the two most accomplished women in the field, the third placer came as a complete shock. 25-year-old Julia Paternain – born in Mexico, raised in England, based in Flagstaff, representing Uruguay – is your 2025 bronze medalist after running 2:27:23 in just the second marathon of her life.

Paternain, who is coached by Jack Polerecky and runs for the McKirdy Trained team, debuted in March at the McKirdy Micro Marathon at Rockland Lake State Park, N.Y., running 2:27:09 to win by more than 11 minutes. That qualified Paternain for Worlds, where Paternain said her best-case scenario goal was to finish in the top eight.

Paternain was part of the third group at halfway and was still only 10th at 30k, but she gradually moved up as those ahead of her succumbed to the heat. One of those who had been ahead of her, Kenya’s Magdalyne Masai, dropped out, which meant Paternain entered the stadium thinking she was in 5th or 6th place. Her stunned expression upon learning she had earned a bronze was priceless.

Paternain has had quite a journey in the sport. She moved to England at the age of two, where her father was a professor at the University of Cambridge. She wound up running in the NCAA, first at Penn State and then Arkansas, and while she made NCAAs on the track as a freshman (22nd in the 5,000), she didn’t do much of note since then and still has never broken 16:00 for 5,000 meters. 

Paternain took a break from the sport after college, but got back into it following a trip to Flagstaff to visit her former Arkansas teammate Krissy Gear. She joined McKirdy Trained last year and discovered a knack for the longer distances, running 70:16 in her half marathon debut in Indianapolis in November before her debut marathon victory. Clearly, the event suits her.

Paternain said she is “from all over” with three passports and a green card, but added that her whole family is from Uruguay and the only ones who don’t live there are her parents and herself.

Susanna Sullivan was proud of how she ran, but was hoping for a medal

Sullivan was hoping to join Marianne Dickerson (silver in 1983) and Amy Cragg (bronze in 2017) as the only American women to medal in a World Championship marathon, and gave it a brave effort. She went to the front early, taking the lead by 5k and breaking away by 15k, building a 27-second lead at halfway. Sullivan knew the top women would come back on her in the second half but was committed to running her own race – something she felt she did as well as she could.

“I’m happy with [the way I ran it], but I’m bummed that I was fourth,” Sullivan said.

The top four today showed the craziness of a hot-weather marathon

Four years ago, Molly Seidel’s surprise bronze medal in the Olympic marathon in Japan showed how hot weather can serve as a great equalizer in a 26.2-mile race. Today, we got another reminder. Peres Jepchirchir and Tigst Assefa would have been favored to contend for the win in any conditions, but several of the other top contenders, such as Tokyo Marathon champ Sutume Kebede (35th) and Berlin champ Tigist Ketema (DNF) struggled in the heat. 

Which meant that the top four in a race that may feature the strongest field of any fall marathon included two budding legends and two women who never finished in the top 100 at the NCAA cross country championships.

That’s right. Paternain ran NCAA XC three times but never finished better than 125th place, which she achieved as a freshman at Penn State in 2018. Sullivan never even ran at NCAA XC – she ran four years at Notre Dame, but was never good enough to make the NCAA roster. Don’t stop believing.