First attempt, first failure. During the 127e edition of the Boston marathon, a competition in which he participated for the first time in his career, the Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge had to be satisfied with a disappointing sixth place. The world record holder leaves the victory to his compatriot Evans Chebet, who won in 2 hours 5 minutes and 54 seconds. The latter becomes the first rider to retain his title in Boston since Robert Kipkoech Cheruiyot’s hat-trick between 2006 and 2008.
On a wet road, while setting the pace of the peloton, Eliud Kipchoge was left behind around the thirtieth kilometer of the race, following a first attack from the Tanzanian Gabriel Geay. The latter was then caught and then dropped two kilometers from the finish by Evans Chebet. Geay won the sprint for second place, ahead of Benson Kipruto, the Kenyan winner of the marathon in 2021. Note the good performance of Frenchman Hassan Chahdi, who crossed the finish line in eighth position (2 h 9 min 46 s ), twenty-three seconds behind Eliud Kipchoge (2 h 9 min 23 s).
His worst performance of the last ten years
The Kenyan, world star of the marathon, achieves his worst performance of the last ten years. For someone who had won 15 of his last 17 marathons, this is a major underperformance.
“Marathon man” therefore fails to tick a box of one of his objectives: to win the six biggest marathons in the world. The 38-year-old long-running specialist has achieved this in four events: the Tokyo (2022), London (2015, 2016, 2018 and 2019) Chicago (2014) and Berlin (2015, 2017, 2018 and 2022), where he achieved a new world record in the last edition, in 2 hours 1 minute 9 seconds.
In the women’s race, victory went to Kenyan Hellen Obiri, who won in 2 hours 21 minutes 38 seconds. She managed to extricate herself from a peloton of six riders who were fighting for victory. At 33, the former specialist in the 10,000 meters won the title, while participating for only the second time in a marathon.