The Tokyo Marathon, one of the biggest running events in the world, took place on Sunday, with 38,000 runners hitting the streets of the Japanese capital to compete in the 16th running of the prestigious race—which ran at its full capacity for the first time in four years.
Kenya’s Rosemary Wanjiru claimed her first major victory with a blazing time of 2:16:28 in just her second career marathon. Meanwhile, Ethiopia’s Tsehay Gemechu, who’s based in Japan, took 2nd place in the women’s race, clocking 2:16:56 and becoming just the 8th woman in history to run a sub-2:17. Two more Ethiopian runners, Ashete Bekere and Worknesh Edesa, finished third and fourth respectively.
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Betsy Saina was the fastest U.S. woman on the day, in her first outing as an American runner since switching citizenship from Kenya. Saina clocked 2:21:40, making her the eighth-fastest female American runner of all time, good enough for fifth place in the women’s field. The time was a personal best for Saina, who ran a minute faster than her previous PR of 2:22:43, achieved in Toronto in 2019, and just gave birth 14 months ago.
In the men’s race, leaders ran a moderate pace for a World Marathon Major, clocking a chill halfway split of 62:10, but an unprecedented 33 men were running a 2:04 pace at the 20K mark.
A whopping 15 Japanese runners were in the mix at this point, despite only one runner in the country’s history having broken 2:05, but this pace would slow later in the race, with all male elite finishers running a positive split. Still, Ichitaka Yamashita (2:05:51) and Kenya Sonota (2:05:59) finished 7th and 8th, respectively, becoming the third and fourth Japanese men to break 2:06. Two other Japanese men, Suguru Osako and Hiroto Inoue, held on to clock times of 2:06:13 and 2:07:09 respectively, placing ninth and 10th.
It was a thrilling finish in Tokyo, as three Ethiopian racers sprinted the final 100 meters in a tight race. Deso Gelmisa, the 2022 Paris champion (2:04:53 personal best), barely took the win over Mohamed Esa (whose personal best of 2:05:05 was good enough for 5th in Amsterdam last fall), with both crossing the mat at 2:05:22. Tsegaye Getachew, the 2022 Amsterdam champ, finished in 3rd, just three seconds behind the duo.
Meanwhile, Cam Levins ran a North American record of 2:05:36 at the marathon, placing him in 5th overall after leading the pack at 40K. This was Levins’ second consecutive Canadian record, having run 2:07:09 at World Athletics Championships last year. The time was two seconds faster than Khalid Khannouchi’s American record of 2:05:38 from 2002—and in the world of Canadian marathon running, Levins is way ahead of the pack. Trevor Hofbauer, the second-fastest Canadian ever, is more than four minutes behind Levins (2:09:51).
While he hails from Canada, Levins was an NCAA athlete running track for Southern Utah University. He defeated Lawi Lalang and Paul Chelimo to win the NCAA 5K/10K double back in 2012. Levins is a notoriously hard trainer—the runner is said to have run over 170 miles a week in preparation for Worlds last summer—and that hard work continues to pay off as his times continue to drop.
Laura Ratliff is a New York City-based writer, editor, and runner. Laura's writing expertise spans numerous topics, ranging from travel and food and drink to reported pieces covering political and human rights issues. She has previously worked at Architectural Digest, Bloomberg News, and Condé Nast Traveler and was most recently the senior editorial director at TripSavvy. Like many of us, Laura was bitten by the running bug later in life, after years of claiming to "hate running." Her favorite marathon is Big Sur.
