Sutume Kebede roared to her second straight win at the Tokyo Marathon on Sunday, while fellow Ethiopian Tadese Takele took the men’s race and captured his first major.
Kebede, 30, dominated for the bulk of the race and crossed the line in 2:16:29, in a field that posed little threat to her push to repeat as champion. Winfridah Moraa finished second in 2:16:56 and Hawi Feysa was third in 2:17:00.
But Kebede did not need any of the dramatic flair from her performance in Tokyo in 2024 to seal the win this time around.
She commanded her pace from the start as both men’s and women’s elite fields battled for position in the same group. In 2024, Kebede shifted gears with just over a mile left in a move that gave her the win. On Sunday, she was mostly in the company of her pacers and in a cluster of other competitors in the men’s race.
At the halfway point, her 1:06:20 split was over a minute and 30 seconds faster than that of Tigist Ketema — her nearest rival who crossed the same mark in 1:07:51. By 30km, Kebede’s lead was sizable as she passed by at 1:34:44 and opened a gap well over two minutes as Moraa crossed that point in 1:37:17.
For Kebede, not letting up was not an options and she continued to surge well into the closing stages.
Meanwhile, Takele stunned in a field of favorites that captured the buzz leading into Sunday’s race, but he used a late surge to seal the win in 2:03:23.
Takele, 22, won his first major marathon and utilized a tactical strategy that was crucial to help pull away from last year’s champion Benson Kipruto, who seemed like a sure bet to reclaim his title. A matchup with Kipruto and Joshua Cheptegi wasn’t in the cards, as the buildup to the race forecasted.
However, Takele waited until the later stages to make a decisive move, as he surged with just 5K remaining, a plan that proved to be the deciding factor.
He was part of a lead group of nearly a dozen runners that stuck to a tight pack through the halfway point.
With Deresa Geleta and Vincent Ngetich still in mix, down the stretch Takele’s late move was initially contested – but well timed.
Geleta finished second in 2:03:51 while Ngetich took third in 2:04:00.
Kipruto faded to sixth in 2:05:46 and denied a second straight win in Tokyo, as Cheptegi finished ninth in 2:05:59 a new personal best. Cheptegi holds the world records at 5,000m and 10,000m.
Race organizers announced that the nearly 38,000 runners took to the streets of Tokyo on Sunday, with 72,603 visitors making their way to the marathon expo in a three-day span from February 27 to March 1.
