Records fell, stars were born and legends ruled again in Series XV of the Abbott World Marathon Majors 

WORDS: Danny Coyle  ILLUSTRATION: Neil Jamieson

The prospect of sporting drama can often be oversold only to underdeliver. 

Those of us who traipse into arenas around the world week after week, or commandeer prime position in front of the TV on a weekend afternoon, do so in the hope that entertainment will unfold to keep us on the edge of our seats. It’s not always so. 

The drabness of the contest we are sometimes served up can leave us wondering what else we could have done with those last couple of hours. 

The 2023 season of the Abbott World Marathon Majors does not fall into that category. It does not even come close. 

In 2023, we have seen three world records, countless course records, elbow-to-elbow sprint finishes, new faces storm the scene and old stagers rage against the dying of the light in a cocktail of marathon running mixed by the sporting Gods. 

It all began on the streets of Tokyo in March. The Japanese capital welcomed the world back to its flagship race for the first time since 2019. 

The wait had been a long one to enjoy the sights of crowded streets and a full field lining up behind the elite cast assembled by Tad Hayano in his final event as race director. 

The athletes he brought to the party certainly kept their end of the deal. Rosemary Wanjiru rocketed to sixth on the women’s marathon all-time list with 2:16:28, defeating Tsehay Gemechi, who also broke 2:17 to become just the eighth woman to breach that mark in history. 

Wanjiru’s margin of victory was 28 seconds, roughly 28 seconds more than Deso Gelmisa’s winning gap.

The Ethiopian battled side by side in the shadow of Tokyo Station with countryman Mohamed Esa before finally nudging in front as the tape approached. 

Further back, there was joy for Canadian Cam Levins, who lead for so much of the race only to finish fifth, but in doing so he broke the great Khalid Khannouchi’s North American record that had stood for 20 years, finishing in 2:05:36. 

The wheelchair races were plundered by Marcel Hug and Manuela Schär. Hug’s win was a portent of a historic year in the making, while for Schär, her third win in Tokyo set her up to battle a strong field of women in the coming months. 

The elite action played out against a backdrop of another historic subplot to a glorious day in Tokyo, as more than 3,000 runners claimed their Six Star Medal, setting a new Guinness World Record in the process. The series was off to a flying start.

Boston 

The annual renewal of the world’s oldest continuously held marathon is enough in itself to capture the gaze of the running world on Patriots’ Day in Massachusetts. 

But throw the greatest man to ever run the distance into the mix, and the attention levels take a quantum leap.  

Eliud Kipchoge’s arrival in Beantown was heralded as the fifth chapter in a six-part odyssey to become the first able-bodied athlete to win all six Abbott World Marathon Majors.  

Coinciding with the 10-year anniversary of the 2013 Boston bombings, emotion and expectation were ratcheted to new levels as Kipchoge spearheaded a field packed with experience and – crucially – Boston knowhow. 

Chief among those with prior knowledge of the fastest way to get from Hopkinton to Boylston Street was Evans Chebet, the 2022 champion.

Chebet is a study in patience, as he had proved in Boston a year earlier, and again in New York City in 2022 when he let Daniel Do Nascimento rage into a lead in a suffocating soup of unseasonable heat, only to pass the stricken Brazilian in the late miles as he lay on the road with no more in the tank. 

Chebet was in the mood to play the waiting game again, and when he struck, Kipchoge had no reply in the lower Newton Falls. 

Chebet strode to glory while Kipchoge labored home in sixth, the dream of a unique six-star achievement washed away in the puddles scattered down the home straight. 

If Chebet was surgically patient with his tactics, Hellen Obiri was practically saintly. The 33-year-old, newly ensconced in her American training base with coach Dathan Ritzenhein, had faded after a promising performance in New York five months earlier, unable to maintain the pace she set when the undulations of Central Park arrived.  

This time, after she was announced as a late entry to the race, she doused her ambitions to escape for as long as she could. Obiri held her nerve until the final two miles in Boston before out-muscling Amane Beriso to take the acclaim of the crowds with a 12-second advantage. 

Kenya celebrated a double, if not the one anyone expected. 

A fervent crowd also got to see its home flag raised on a day packed with remembrance.  

Susannah Scaroni, the defending AbbottWMM series champion, knew that if she was going to beat last year’s Boston winner Manuela Schär, she had to hang on for dear life on the downhills and deploy her superior climbing when it mattered most.  

She did both, and then some. She was free and clear by halfway, even with time to stop, produce a wrench, and tighten a troublesome left wheel nut, and continue on her way to claim the olive wreath. 

As for the men’s wheelchair race: Marcel Hug could not be touched. Man and machine were working in perfect harmony, and another course record was collected by the Silver Bullet, finishing in 1:17:06. 

“I tried to not have it in my mind that it could be six wins. now I realize what happened”

MARCEL HUG

“To be honest, I am scared of the marathon. I don’t know whether I will finish or not, but I’m also very curious.  Sometimes I wake up and think ‘Why the hell did I decide to run a marathon?’” 

SIFAN HASSAN

London 

The vast majority of London’s record-size field on April 22 would have been experiencing some scale of doubt, nerves and outright panic as race day approached. It’s a natural and expected state for most of us who have lived through a marathon race week.  

But to hear that the same cascade of emotions were tumbling through the mind of one of the finest runners of the modern era was both surprising and settling all at once. 

Sifan Hassan’s track career speaks for itself, but as she stepped up to the challenge of 26.2 miles, it was as though all those records and medals mattered for nought.  

“I’ve already been nervous for a month,” she admitted before the race. “To be honest, I am scared of the marathon. I don’t know whether I will finish or not, but I’m also very curious.  

“Sometimes I wake up and think ‘Why the hell did I decide to run a marathon?’” 

And all that apprehension seemed well-placed when the race began. The Dutch athlete fell off the pace of the front group after six miles and was seen stopping to stretch a stiff hip, which prompted luminaries such as Steve Cram and Paula Radcliffe, commentating for the host broadcaster, to suggest she might want to call it a day. 

Hassan had other ideas. A gap to the lead pack was whittled away in the last nine miles, and – despite a near collision with a race motorbike as she veered across the road for a drinks station – she was suddenly back on their shoulders which, considering her track speed, must have felt like a body blow to their chances. Speed kills. 

Hassan inevitably roared away from the pack as she flew past Buckingham Palace, and claimed one of the most dramatic marathon debut wins in history. 

“I can’t believe I’ve finished, let alone won,” she said afterwards. “I can’t believe I’ve finished a marathon. I put a lot of pressure on myself. I’m so stupid to play this kind of game. What was I thinking, running a marathon? I never cry, but this morning I was crying!” 

There was drama of a different sort in the men’s race, as the crowds screamed for Kelvin Kiptum to propel himself to a new world record. 

The 23-year-old was running his second marathon after clocking 2:01:53 on debut in Valencia, and proved he was no one-race wonder as he edged closer and closer to threatening Eliud Kipchoge’s 2:01:09.  

After some astonishing splits of 61:40 for the first half and 59:45 for the second, Kiptum just fell off Kipchoge’s mark, finishing in 2:01:25 to snatch the course record Kipchoge set in 2019, and put the world on notice that he was leading the chase to catch the great man. 

Marcel Hug was even more dominant in the London wheelchair race, while we witnessed a thrilling sprint finish in the women’s wheelchair contest. Madison De Rozario burst from the pack of four on The Mall to become the third different Major winner in as many events in a series that was shaping up to be a classic. 

Berlin 

Back on familiar territory, Eliud Kipchoge was back on a familiar step of the podium as he stormed to victory for the fifth time in Berlin. He could not lower his own world record on this occasion, finishing in 2:02:42. 

Despite another thoroughly impressive performance from Kipchoge, it would be a mere footnote by the day’s end.  

Tigist Assefa was back in the German capital to defend her title, but no one predicted what she was about to do. 

The age of the super shoe has long been a subject of heated discussion, with further fuel added to the debate when Assefa, sporting the latest iteration of footwear from her sponsor, took a match to the record books in Berlin. 

The 26-year-old Ethiopian set a barely-believable new world record of 2:11:53, slicing two minutes and 11 seconds off the time set by Brigid Kosgei in Chicago in 2019. She held one of her shoes aloft after crossing the line in a nod to the advances we have seen in recent years across the leading manufacturers. 

Assefa’s ascent from a 2:36 in Saudi Arabia in March 2022 to 2:11 18 months later was a story that had onlookers struggling to comprehend what they’d seen. 

Hers was not the only world record to fall in Berlin. 

In the women’s wheelchair race, the first four across the line all finished under the existing world record. Catherine Debrunner was at the head of that group, repeating her win of 12 months prior and inserting herself into the conversation for the series title with a time of 1:34:16 

Her compatriot Hug won in 1:23:07, coming home over six minutes in front of the second placed Daniel Romanchuk. 

Chicago 

Two weeks after seeing Eliud Kipchoge fail to improve upon his own world record, Kelvin Kiptum pitched up in the Windy City with his sights firmly fixed on finally beating his fellow Kenyan’s best. 

He did just that, scorching home in 2:00:35. In doing so, Kiptum became the owner of three of the six fastest times in history, and brought into view the prospect of a sub-two-hour marathon under certified race conditions. 

If his winning time was astonishing in itself, some of the embedded statistics that comprised his performance were equally as incredible. His half marathon splits were 60:48 for the first 13.1 miles and 59:47 for the second, with a 4:18 mile recorded in his 22nd mile, the fastest ever seen in a marathon. 

Sifan Hassan was also in town and blazed her way to the second fastest women’s time ever, 2:13:36. Six weeks earlier she had claimed medals on the track at the World Athletics Championships, underlining her incredible range as well as what appears to be a turn of pace over 26.2 miles that promises great things as we look to 2024 and beyond. Dare she focus on the marathon at next year’s Olympics? 

While Marcel Hug blasted his way to a fifth win in five races, Susannah Scaroni and Catherine Debrunner escaped from the pack in the women’s wheelchair race and engaged in a personal duel all the way to the final straight. It was Debrunner who emerged victorious, demonstrating that she can put her record-setting track speed to good use in a dash for the tape on the roads. 

The Swiss was now a genuine contender for the series title as all eyes turned to the finale in the Big Apple. 

New York City 

With Kiptum having a firm grip on the men’s series title, race day glory was the prime motivation for the men’s field spearheaded by Ethiopia’s Tamirat Tola. The 32-year-old had become world champion in 2022 but had never occupied the top of the podium at one of the Majors.  

He set about rectifying that in style in New York, breaking his rivals at the 20-mile mark and powering to a new course record of 2:04:56, bettering the time set by Geoffrey Mutai in 2011 and climbing into the prize money places in the final Series XV standings. 

The women’s race was stacked with a raft of potential winners and the smart money was on Margaret Okayo’s 22-year-old course record finally tumbling.  

Among the field was Boston champion Hellen Obiri, the only woman who could equal Sifan Hassan’s two wins in the series to force a race director vote for the 2023 champion. 

A pedestrian pace meant that Okayo’s record would be safe for another year, and it also meant a gaggle of the strongest women remained in-tact late into the race. Eventually, it was reduced to Obiri, last year’s winner Sharon Lokedi and New York newcomer Letesenbet Gidey, whose debut in Valenica was the fastest maiden marathon in the record books. 

As Lokedi faded on the final approach to Central Park, Obiri and Gidey were left to fight it out, Gidey with her serene, gliding style a glaring contrast to Obiri’s street-fighting, shoulder-rolling gait.  

As they climbed the final few hundred metres, the hustling Obiri finally established an advantage that the Ethiopian could not close, and she made the line to claim the first female Boston/New York double in the same year since Ingrid Kristiansen in 1989. 

It was not quite enough for Obiri to win the vote against Hassan for the series title. The race directors decided Hassan’s storybook debut in London and lighting-fast time in Chicago were enough to edge Obiri’s two battling performances in Boston and New York. 

The huge crowds lining the course also got to see Marcel Hug make history as he charged to his sixth win in six Majors, sealing the series title and a golden six star medal for his perfect season.  

In the women’s wheelchair race, with four women still in the hunt for the title and all of them rolling off the start on Staten Island, it was the Barbie-pink-clad Catherine Debrunner who stormed over the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge to throw down the gauntlet to her competition. 

“it has been a fairytale year with all the records and marathon victories. It was just amazing. I really don’t have the words for it”

CATHERINE DEBRUNNER

She simply blew them all away, taming the tough New York course to win the race, the series and claim an additional $50,000 for setting a new course record. She is the first woman to break 1:40 in the five boroughs. 

There has never been a year in which so many records were broken in an AbbottWMM season as we move into what feels like a new era in the sport.  

It all starts again on March 3 in Tokyo. Dare we dream that 2024 can surpass the 12 months we have just enjoyed?