BOSTON (AP) — Defending champion John Korir shattered the Boston Marathon course record on Monday, riding a tailwind to outrun the strongest field in race history and win in 2 hours, 1 minute, 52 seconds
— the fifth-fastest marathon of all time.
Sharon Lokedi joined her fellow Kenyan as a back-to-back champion, winning the women's race in 2:18:51. Zouhair Talbi and Jess McClain ran the fastest times ever for Americans, in the men's and women's races, respectively.
A year after joining his brother Wesley, the 2012 champion, as the only relatives to win the race, John Korir broke away from the pack as it headed into Heartbreak Hill in Newton and opened a 40-second lead.
He peeked behind him as he went through Kenmore Square with a mile to go, sticking out his tongue and spreading his arms as he ran down Boylston Street to beat the previous course record of 2:03:02 set by Geoffrey Mutai in 2011 by 70 seconds.
Kelvin Kiptum holds the marathon world record, with a 2:00:35 on the flatter Chicago course in 2023.
Alphonce Felix Simbu of Tanzania, 55 seconds back, and 2021 champion Benson Kipruto, another 3 seconds behind him, also were fast enough to better the previous Boston record.
Talbi, who competed in the 2024 Paris Olympics for Morocco and became an American citizen last year, was fifth in 2:03:45.
Lokedi, who broke the women's course record last year by more than 2 1/2 minutes, took the lead entering the Newton Hills and emerged from them with an expanding lead. On a day that started in the 30s but warmed to 45 degrees (7 degrees Celsius) by the start, Lokedi pulled off her gloves as she went through Coolidge Corner in Brookline and smiled her way down Boylston Street.
Loice Chemnung was second, 44 seconds back, followed by Mary Ngugi-Cooper in third. McClain was fifth.
Korir and Lokedi each won $150,000 and a gilded olive wreath sent from the plains of Marathon, Greece. Korir will receive another $50,000 for the course record.
Marcel Hug of Switzerland won his ninth wheelchair title in 1:16:06, missing his own course record by 33 seconds. He is one shy of the all-category record of South African wheelchair athlete Ernst Van Dyk's 10 Boston Marathon wins.
Two-time winner Daniel Romanchuk of Champaign, Illinois, was second behind Hug for the fourth straight time.
In the women's wheelchair race, Eden Rainbow-Cooper of Britain won her second Boston title, finishing in 1:30:51 to beat runner-up Catherine Debrunner of Switzerland by more than two minutes.
The athletes arrived in Hopkinton with frost on the ground and temperatures in the 30s. Although it warmed up through the day, it was the coldest starting temperature since 2018, when it was 38 degree temperatures combined with a headwind and driving rain that led to the slowest winning times in more than 40 years.
But the clear skies and slight tailwind on Monday had the fastest field in the 130-year history of the world’s oldest and most prestigious annual marathon expecting fast times for the second year in a row.
Lokedi shattered the women's course record last year, and Korir posted the third-fastest time in Boston history in that race.
Jack Fultz, who was serving as grand marshal on the 50th anniversary of his “Run for the Hoses,” said the weather was the “polar opposite” from the day of his 1976 win in temperatures approaching 100 degrees (38 degrees Celsius).
“I am just trying to soak it all in, to remember it all," he said before in Hopkinton on Monday. “There are almost are no words to fully describe the kind of experience. You have a dream of a lifetime and all of a sudden it comes true.”
Runners may have noticed some changes this year, with the race turning to a crowd scientist for help in spreading things out a little so they don’t face bottlenecks on the narrow streets of the eight cities and towns along the course. At the start is a new statue of and by marathon pioneer Bobbi Gibb — the first statue on the course honoring a woman.
Race Director Dave McGillivray sent a group of about 50 members of the Massachusetts National Guard members off at 6 a.m. to get the day started. Staff Sgt. Mackenzie Smith and Spec. Benjamin De Boer stepped back and forth to try to stay warm before they set off on the course, but the cold didn't dampen their enthusiasm for participating in the Boston Marathon for the first time.
“It's an honor and a blessing to be standing at the Boston Marathon start,” Smith said. “The history that goes with the marathon resonates with me, growing up in Massachusetts.”
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Associated Press Writer Jennifer McDermott in Hopkinton, Mass., contributed to this report.
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