More than 25 years have passed since any woman won three Boston Marathons in a row.
Hellen Obiri has the chance to end that run on Patriots’ Day.
The Kenyan has ruled the roads from Hopkinton to Boylston Street with her unique street-fighting style that has also carried her to the TCS New York City Marathon title in 2023 and Olympic marathon bronze last summer.
Her exploits in 2024 were enough to give her the Abbott World Marathon Majors series which she will now begin her defense of at a race she seems tailor-made for.
Obiri wins her marathons like a rugged boxer in a championship bout, taking opponents deep into the late rounds before piling on the pressure to the point where they are broken.
In 2023 she was content to let American Emma Bates race into the lead in the final 10km, before Lonah Salpeter then took up the charge as Bates ran out of matches. It wasn’t until the final mile that Obiri mustered the combination of punches that carried her past the Israeli and all the way to the tape.
She won in similar fashion a year later, waiting until the last two kilometers to drain the remaining drops of resolve from her fellow Kenyan Sharon Lokedi.
If the rest of the contenders have done their homework ahead of Monday, they will know it would be a high stakes gamble not to make the race quick enough to try and take the track speed out of Obiri’s legs before those closing stages.
Lokedi will be among them again, as will 2023 world champion Amane Beriso and 2022 London champion Yalemzerf Yehualaw, who set a course record 2:16:42 in Amsterdam last October.
The ageless Edna Kiplagat is also back, as is Mary Ngugi-Cooper who has been on the podium here before. Ethiopian Buze Diriba was fourth in Boston and Chicago last year and will also figure if the lead pack is as sizeable as it has been in the last two years of the women’s race.
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