NEW WOMEN’S MARATHON WORLD RECORD

Kenya’s Ruth Chepngetich delivered a breathtaking performance in Chicago on Sunday, smashing the women’s marathon world record with a time of 2:09:56, nearly two minutes faster than the previous best. Her incredible feat marked her third Chicago Marathon victory and shattered the record set by Ethiopia’s Tigst Assefa (2:11:53) just last year in Berlin.

Chep­ngetich pulled ahead ear­ly, leav­ing her com­pe­ti­tion far behind by the halfway point. She crossed the fin­ish line to deaf­en­ing cheers, show­cas­ing her dom­i­nance as she rewrote marathon his­to­ry. Ethiopia’s Sutume Kebe­de fin­ished in sec­ond place, trail­ing by a stag­ger­ing 7 min­utes and 36 sec­onds, with Kenya’s Irine Chep­tai secur­ing third at 2:17:51.

“This is my dream come true,” Chep­ngetich said after the race. While her time was ini­tial­ly record­ed as 2:09:57, it was lat­er offi­cial­ly adjust­ed by a sec­ond.

Her com­pa­tri­ot, John Korir, took home the men’s title, cross­ing the fin­ish in 2:02:44.

Chep­ngetich set a blis­ter­ing pace right from the start, clock­ing the first five kilo­me­ters in 15 min­utes flat. By the halfway mark, she had already built a 14-sec­ond lead over Kebe­de, leav­ing com­men­ta­tors aston­ished. They likened her sub‑2:10 marathon attempt to the moon land­ing, as she seemed to gath­er even more strength in the final two miles, sprint­ing to the fin­ish.

A for­mer world cham­pi­on from 2019, Chep­ngetich col­lapsed in exhaus­tion after break­ing the tape, ded­i­cat­ing her record-break­ing per­for­mance to fel­low Kenyan run­ner Kelvin Kip­tum. Kip­tum had set the men’s marathon world record in Chica­go last year but trag­i­cal­ly died in a car acci­dent four months lat­er.

“World record was on my mind,” she said in post-race com­ments. “Chica­go, as I said in the press, feels like home.”

The day began with a moment of silence in Kip­tum’s hon­or. Last year, he com­plet­ed the marathon in 2:00:35, and his mem­o­ry clear­ly inspired many of Sunday’s run­ners.

On the men’s side, Korir ran a smart race, stay­ing with the lead pack for the first 30 kilo­me­ters before mak­ing his move. By the 35-kilo­me­ter mark, he was near­ly 30 sec­onds ahead of the com­pe­ti­tion. He main­tained that momen­tum and fin­ished strong, with his arms out­stretched as he claimed his first major title with a per­son­al best time.

Ethiopia’s Mohamed Esa fin­ished sec­ond in 2:04:39, while Kenya’s Amos Kipru­to took third in 2:04:50.

“I was think­ing about Kip­tum today,” Korir said. “I had to believe in myself and give it every­thing.”