The London Marathon - The Best of The Best
Every year, the London Marathon brings together more top marathoners than any other event in the world. With more money to attract top talent, a course that can support fast times and even world records and a level of competition that ensures a top finish equals permanent notoriety, London is the best...

Of course the goal is to win the race. But for 2024, there was even more on the line. With 2024 being an Olympic year, the athletes would be running for a spot on their nation's Olympic marathon squad - a good finish could mean an invitation to run in the Paris Olympics, whereas a bad finish could end that dream. And... the level of talent in the women's race also meant that there would likely be a world record on the day.

Selection to the Olympic Squad
Beyond being an important race, the London Marathon falls before the deadline on which a nation's Olympic team must be selected - and with 2024 as an Olympic year, the London Marathon was crucial in this regard, especially for Kenya. In the USA, we are used to the Olympic athletics squads being selected at a special "Trials" race. But that is not the case for most of the world. In fact, Japan is the only other country that selects its olympic squad via a special race. For the rest of the world, the national governing body for Athletics chooses the team.

For 2024, Kenya had announced a short list of five men and six women from which the Olympic Marathon squad would be selected. Three of the six women would be running the 2024 London Marathon, so for those women, there was an additional incentive to have a successful race. The three women vying for an Olympic spot were Brigid Kosgei with her 2:14:04 personal best and the silver medalist from the Tokyo Olympics; Ruth Chepngetich with her 2:14:18 personal best and 2019 World Champion; and Peres Jepchirchir with her 2:17:16 personal best (slower than the others) who was the reigning Olympic Marathon champion, but had not excelled in the last couple of years...

The Oddity of a World Record Expectation
It may be strange to consider that a world record could be considered a high probability event at any race. Not something to strive for, but something that will almost definitely happen - such was the case at the 2024 London Marathon in the women's race.

The reason has to do with the fact that some races have a separate start - effectively a separate race - for women, while at some races, the women and men start together. Oddly, that matters.

At many of the top marathons in the world, the elite women will start their race ahead of the others so that they would be running without men around them. Many don't understand the reason for having the women start early - was it initially to ensure that they didn't receive assistance from male runners? No! It became necessary to have women run their own race for television... The television value of a race was diminished when the lead women were surrounded and often totally obscured by men running around them, and in the bigger marathons, there were plenty of men running the pace of the top women OR men running with the lead women long enough to get some television time of their own. The solution was to have the women run alone by starting early.

In 2002, the London Marathon set up a race where Paula Radcliffe would chase the record but being paced in totality by a male runner. Of course having a steady pacer makes it easier to maintain a pace and Radcliffe destroyed the prior women's record by nearly a minute and a half. Immediately, controversy arose - was it fair that Radcliffe was paced the entire way by a man? Would this be a new standard - to have women paced by men? What if a race wanted to have tbe women run in their own heat - that would make it hard to set a record. The solution: initially, and as the debate raged, Radcliffe's record run was marked with an asterisk. And eventually, the decision was made to have two record standards: women in a mixed race and women in a women's only race.

A number of elite races continue to run women's races mixed with men - either because they don't have the ability to create a large and deep enough women's field to create a compelling race and/or they are hoping men's pacers can bring the women home in an faster and more impressive time. Of the world marathon majors, only New York, Boston and London run women's-only races; but due to the nature of the courses, Boston and New York will not see new records, so basically the only place for a women's-only record could be London.

For the 2024 marathon there were three women who had run faster than the women's-only record. How could one of them not break that record, even without a male pacer. Most importantly, London had brought in the woman who had set the mixed-race world record, Tigst Assefa, who ran 2:11:53 in September 2023. That recent time was more than five minutes faster than the women's-only record of 2:17:01, so even without the aid of a male pacer, it seemed certain that Assefa could run faster than that to set a new women's-only world record. And in the field were two other women who had run faster than 2:17:01: Brigid Kosgei had previously set the mixed-race record of 2:14:04 in Chicago in 2019 and Ruth Chepngetich had bested the women's-only record with a 2:14:18 in Chicago in 2022. With Assefa in the field - supported by Kosgei and Chepngetich - the women's-only record seemed certain to fall.

Additional Incentive for the World Record
To sweeten the pot, the London Marathon offered time bonuses to its elite athletes. Any women running sub-2:17:00 would earn at least an additional $100,000. And the first woman to break the women's-only world record of 2:17:01 would earn an additional $150,000 on top of that. Setting a new world and entering the record books is already a great incentive, but add another $250,000 bonus for setting the new record - that is an even greater incentive. A new world record would cost the London Marathon a large amount of money, but they would be happy to pay it.

The Women's Race
From the beginning, the women went out at a pace to comfortably beat the women's-only record and at a pace which, if all went well, could be increased to also reach set a time that would eclipse the fastest time ever run. Nine women ran through the first 5k in 15:44 (5:04/mile), 10K in 31:26 (15:42 split) - that pace, if maintained, would equate to 2:12:38 for a full marathon, just behind Tigst Assefa's record run of 2:11:53 and faster than any other marathon ever run. The pace slowed after 10K, but always remained on pace for the women's-only world record.

Of the fastest women, Ruth Chepngetich was the first to fall back from the leaders just before the halfway mark and Brigid Kosgei fell back before 25K. But by 40K, amazingly, four women remained: Peres Jepchirchir, Tigst Assefa, Alemu Megertu and Joyciline Jepkosgei. The women were running toward a 2:16:00 finish which would be a personal best for all but Assefa.

Into the final stretch, Peres Jepchirchir was able to find an extra gear and run away from the other women to win in 2:16:16 - a new women's only record and a new personal best. With that win, Jepchirchir has now won three of the World Marathon Majors (New York, Boston, London) as well as the Olympic Marathon - amazing. Further, Jepchirchir should have nearly guaranteed her selection to the Kenyan team for the upcoming Olympic marathon.

Three other women finished with times faster than the previous women's-only race record. Tigst Assefa, the fastest marathoner ever, took second in 2:16:23. While Assefa may be fastest in a time trial race set for her, we have now seen that she may not win in a sprint to the finish. This will lead to an exciting rematch between Assefa and Jepchirchir in the Paris Olympics. Joyciline Jepkosgei finished strongly in third place, just a second behind Assefa. Jepkosgei was on the short list of ten women announced by Athletics Kenya in December 2023 as being in contention for an Olympic team spot, but she was dropped when the shorter list of six women was announced in April, so her performance will most likely not make a difference for the Olympic team selection. Finally, Alemu Megertu, took the fourth spot in a time of 2:16:34.

Among the other Kenyan women, Brigid Kosgei fell off the lead pack at mile 20 and lingered in seventh place for much of the remainder of the race. As others slowed, Kosgei moved forward to finish in fifth position in 2:19:02. The question now remaining regarding Kosgei is whether her run at London (and her status as Silver Medalist at the Tokyo Olympics) will be good enough to have her selected as the third member of the Kenyan Olympic marathon team or whether that spot is more likely to fall to Sharon Lokedi who finished strongly as runner-up at the Boston Marathon.

Top Finishers:

1. Peres JEPCHIRCHIR (KEN) 2:16:16 - $ 305,000
2. Tigst ASSEFA (ETH) - 2:16:23 - $ 130,000
3. Joyciline JEPKOSGEI (KEN) - 2:16:24 - $ 122,500
4. Megertu ALEMU (ETH) - 2:16:34 - $ 115,000
5. Brigid KOSGEI (KEN) - 2:19:02 - $ 10,000
6. Sheila CHEPKIRUI (KEN) - 2:19:31 - $ 7,500
7. Tigist KETEMA (ETH) - 2:23:21 - $ 5,000
8. Yalemzerf YEHUALAW (ETH) - 2:23:26 - $ 4,000
9. Ruth CHEPNGETICH (KEN) - 2:24:36 - $ 3,000
10. Tsige HAILESLASE (ETH) - 2:25:03 - $ 2,000
11. Mhairi MACLENNAN (GBR) - 2:29:14 - $ 1,500
12. Becky BRIGGS (GBR) - 2:35:25 - $ 1,000
13. Rachel HODGKINSON (GBR) - 2:36:49
14. Helen GAUNT (GBR) - 2:38:40
15. Alice WRIGHT (GBR) - 2:40:51

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