Kenya’s Rosemary Wanjiru yesterday resisted stiff competition to bag victory in the women category of this year’s Tokyo Marathon, a World Athletics Platinum Label road race.

Wanjiru claimed victory with a personal best time of 2:16:28 for the seventh-fastest women’s marathon performance in history, winning by 28 seconds ahead of Ethiopia’s Tsehay Gemechu who also dipped under 2:17, herself becoming just the eighth woman to ever achieve the feat.

The women’s race was down to four by the 20km mark, the tempo having eased slightly as Wanjiru, Edesa, Bekere and Gemechu reached that point in 1:04:44. Matsuda was just over a minute behind them, clocking 1:05:52.

The leading quartet remained together behind the two pacemakers through 25km in 1:21:07, but a few kilometres later that group of four, led by Wanjiru, decided to leave the pacers behind. The tempo had slipped to 2:17 pace at 30km, reached in 1:37:25, but Wanjiru and Gemechu forged ahead over the next couple of kilometres. Wanjiru was running solo by 39km but upped her pace to a projected 2:16:20 finish at the 40km mark, passed in 2:09:14, and she had a 19-second lead over Gemechu. Wanjiru continued to glance over her shoulder during the closing kilometre but she had nothing to worry about and she crossed the finish line well clear, evidently elated with her victory and big 2:16:28 PB.

Wanjiru has represented Kenya in Several occasions, first in 2015 when she bagged bronze in the 5000m race at the All African Games in Brazzaville Congo, in 2019 she finished 4th in the 10,000m race at the Doha World Championships.

“Iam extremely happy for the win even though the field was tough but I tried my best and won the race, I am using this race as part of preparation for the World Athletics Championships Budapest because my joy is to always compete for my country,” she said.

In the men’s categories Ethiopia’s Deso Gelmisa led an Ethiopian clean sweep of the podium

In a tight finish, the 25-year-old Gelmisa finished in 2:05:22 to win his first World Marathon Major by one second ahead of compatriot Mohamed Esa. Tsegaya Getachew finished third, two seconds further while Kenya’s Titus Kipruto finished fourth in 2:05:32.