2025 Boston Marathon winner Sharon Lokedi has revealed why she was motivated to beat Hellen Obiri.

Lokedi won in 2:17:22, taking two minutes and 37 seconds off the course record that had stood for 11 years, while Obiri, the winner in Boston for the past two years, was second in 2:17:41.

“It feels so good, so great. I can’t believe it; I’m so excited. We went halfway in 68 minutes, and I thought, ‘That’s so fast,’ but we hadn’t gotten to the hills yet. We just kept the pace, honest, but I was worried we were going too fast.

“I have finished behind Hellen so many times, but this time I told myself it wasn’t going to happen again. I fought and wanted it so bad. I loved every part of this race,” Lokedi said, as quoted by World Athletics.

As per the stats shared by World Athletics, the women’s course record was under threat from the outset as a group of 15 women – including Lokedi, Obiri, Yehualaw, world champion Amane Beriso and Irine Cheptai – ran together through 10km in 32:51.

The pace then increased, and the lead group was whittled down quickly to just five women—Yehualaw, Obiri, Lokedi, Beriso, and Cheptai—as 20km was reached in 1:05:04, giving them a predicted finish time of 2:17:17.

After passing through the halfway stage in 1:08:46, Beriso started to force the pace. By 17 miles, Cheptai’s challenge started to fade, leaving four women out in front. The lead quartet reached 20 miles – the infamous Heartbreak Hill section – in 1:45:08, now 22 seconds ahead of Cheptai with a chase pack of five women some three minutes adrift of the leaders.

Beriso was the next to fall behind, and it soon became clear the podium would comprise Obiri, Lokedi, and Yehualaw. The latter started to fade with about two miles to go, leaving Kenyan duo Obiri and Lokedi to battle it out for victory.

Lokedi – who placed second in Boston last year and fourth at the Olympic Games in Paris, both times finishing just behind Obiri – dug deep in the closing stages and pulled clear of her domestic rival with one kilometre to go.

She extended her lead and crossed the finish line in 2:17:22, smashing the course record and clocking her fastest marathon to date (though it won’t count for PB purposes as the Boston course isn’t record eligible). Obiri finished in 2:17:41, also her fastest ever time in a marathon, while Yehualaw followed 25 seconds later.