London Marathon: Jepchirchir beats top rivals to break world record

Peres Jepchirchir managed to beat a strong field to emerge the winner of the London Marathon and smashed the women-only world record by 45 on April 21, 2024.

The Olympic champion completed the race in 2:16:16 as she emerged on top of what was widely regarded as one of the deepest and highest-quality women’s fields ever assembled.

Her rivals included world record-holder Tigist Assefa, 2021 London winner Joyciline Jepkosgei and last year’s runner-up Megertu Alemu, who all finished inside 2:17. Notably, this is Jepchirchir's third victory in a World Marathon Majors race.

Breaking Mary Keitany’s women-only world record of 2:17:01 was the big target for the women’s race and all contenders started strong.

The leading pack detached themselves from the rest of the field and blazed through the first 5km in 15:44 and were comfortably inside 2:13 pace. Jepchirchir and her rivals maintained that tempo through 10km which they covered in 31:26.

Assefa alongside, Jepkosgei, Yalemzerf Yehualaw and Brigid Kosgei were still in the lead and got to 15km in 47:37. however, Sheila Chepkirui, who is the runner-up in Berlin last year, started to struggle.

The 2019 world champion Ruth Chepng'etich lost contact with the leaders leaving just seven women remaining in the pack as they reached the halfway point in 1:07:04.

Tight race

This was the second-fastest half-way split ever recorded in London, and this put the contenders on schedule to smash the women-only world record by almost three minutes, according to World Athletics.

Kosgei faded and left six women in the leading group; Jepchirchir, Assefa, training partner and Dubai marathon champion Tigist Ketema, 2022 London winner Yehualaw, 2021 London champion Jepkosgei, and 2023 London runner-up Megertu Alemu.

They hit the 25km in 1:19:38 and at this point, Ketema and Yehualaw were unable to hold on for much further and left Assefa, Jepchirchir, Jepkosgei and Alemu to fight for the top three positions. The difference between 25km and 30km, 16:18, was the slowest 5km section of the race. 

As the race halted towards the final stretch, it was a close battle between Assefa and Jepchirchir as they took turns testing each other's resilience at that point. However, their overall pace continued to drop and they reached 35km in 1:52:48, putting them on course for a 2:16 finish.

They passed 40km in 2:09:13, still running side by side before Alemu was finally dropped and seconds later, Jepchirchir flew away to beat Jepkosgei and Assefa.

She crossed the finish line at 2:16:16, which was seven seconds ahead of Assefa as Jepkosgei (2:16:24) and Alemu (2:16:34) followed.

This is a big boost for Jepchirchir who hopes to defend her title during the Olympic Games in Paris. There, she would hope to become the first-ever woman to win back-to-back women’s marathon gold medallist in the history of the Games.