Ethiopia celebrated double victory at the 50th BMW BERLIN-MARATHON as Milkesa Mengesha and Tigist Ketema claimed the 2024 titles.
Mengesha, a former U20 world cross-country champion and sixth in the 2023 World Championship marathon, won a patient contest after an aggressive opening 10km.
The 24-year-old sat comfortably in a leading pack that contained pre-race favorites Tadese Takele and Kibiwott Kandie. Outsiders Stephen Kiprop and Cybrian Kotut were also among the leaders and, for the first two 5km splits, it looked as though Eliud Kipchoge’s course record of 2:01:09 was in range.
In near perfect conditions, the front pack clocked 14:25 for the first 5km, which was even quicker than Kelvin Kiptum’s first 5km split when he ran 2:00:25 in Chicago last year.
The pace lowered a little by halfway with 60:57 posted in the glorious morning sunshine, but rather than kick on in the second half, tactics began to prevail over time goals. It took until the final 5km for the pack to begin to shed contenders, with Kandie and Takele losing touch before a final quartet of Kiprop, Kotut, Haymanot Alew and Mengesha remained.
Alew was next to falter, closely followed by Kiprop, who he would eventually overtake to claim third place.
Ahead of them, Mengesha finally shook Kotut loose as the pair approached the Brandenburg Gate, to cross the line in a new PB of 2:03:17, more than seven minutes faster than the time he clocked in Budapest last summer.
Kotut clocked 2:03:22 for second place with Alew getting home in 2:03:31.
For Ketema, there was no such battle in the final kilometers.
She began the day as the hot favorite and by halfway she had established a lead of more than a minute.
The 26-year-old, who set the fastest debut marathon of all time in Dubai earlier this year of 2:16:07, couldn’t quite match that, eventually winning in 2:16:42, the third fastest winning time in the race’s 50-year history.
She lead an Ethiopian women's clean sweep with Mestawot Fikir second in 2:18:28 and Bosena Mulatie claiming third in 2:19:00.
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