Women’s Marathon World Record Shattered in Chicago
Ruth Chepng’etich won today’s Chicago Marathon, becoming the first woman in history to run a sub-2:10 marathon, finishing in 2:09:56.
The Kenyan’s time shed nearly a full two minutes off of the prior world record, which was 2:11:53. That time had been set by Tigst Assefa of Ethiopia last year at the Berlin Marathon.
Chepng’etich, wearing Nike’s AlphaFly 3, stormed to the front of the field at the start, with a 15:00 opening 5 kilometers that gave her a two second lead over Ethiopian Sutume Kebede she would never relinquish.
Kebede was the only runner in the same zip code as Chepng’etich through the 10 kilometer mark with another 15 minute split. But over the next stretch of miles the elastic between the two stretched ever further, and by the halfway mark Chepng’etich had built a 14 second lead.
Chepng’etich’s 40 kilometer split saw her come through in 2:03:11, needing to cover the final 2.2ish kilometers in 6:49 to squeak under the nearly unfathomable 2:10 mark. She barely made it — needing 6:47 to get it done.
Her final margin of victory was seven minutes and 36 seconds.
Chepng’etich dedicated her victory to the memory of men’s marathon world record holder Kelvin Kiptum, who died earlier this year in a car accident.
Image: Getty Images
Amazing run in less than ideal conditions. I’m not sure what it is, but it’s definitely not JUST the shoes. Lots of guys getting “chicked” today.
7 min to the top male
7/122 = 5.7 percent
That delta has to be one of the closest of all time. I remember when Radcliffe ran 2:15 at the 2003 London Marathon her delta to the male winner (almost 2:08) was almost the same (7/128 = 5.4…I am neglecting the exact seconds), So we have seen these types of female results on a relative scale previously compared to guys, but the scale moved faster by 6 minutes in the last 21 years !!!
Why were the conditions less than ideal? Compared to years past, this was about as good as it gets - light cloud cover, minimal wind, mild temps
Broke her 5k, 10k and half marathon (x2, back to back) lifetime bests during a marathon. Totally normal.
High 50’s low 60’s and humidity in the 80’s are a little warm for a marathon. Other than that yes pretty good conditions.
Steve Magness has an excellent take.
Gotcha, and I am not trying to diminish her great accomplishment… Not perfect, agreed, but pretty darn close, leading Korir to a 2 min PB as well.
I am not the biggest fan of pacers in majors, but since they are allowed, I think they close the gap to perfect conditions considerably. I think same conditions without pacers, maybe she is a minute slower, considering the swirling wind and additional mental strain.
She had two very tall male pacers, to create a draft effect like for kipchoge’s breaking 2.
Peres Jepchirchir has the women’s only record of 2:16
Yes, it’s very similar to Radcliffe’s 2:15 many years ago, both in terms of similarity to the men’s record and in terms of progression. I was ecstatic when she produced that performance - I became her biggest fan. I find myself a bit more jaded these days, but I also don’t remember this amount of skepticism when Radcliffe completed her run.
Please also remember that female marathoners can be paced wire to wire and sheltered by their pacers, so it makes sense that the records would be closer percentage-wise for the marathon than for races in which women don’t have these advantages.
I just wanted to check some math where women can pace each other wire to wire (as do men), so looked at the 1500m world record 3:26 for El Gherrouj vs 3:49 for Faith Kipeyegon. 23/206 = 11 percent.
In the 100m (no drafting at all) 9.58 Bolt vs 10:49 FloJo, we have 0.91/9.58 = 9.49 percent.
So indeed having male pacers around helps to close that gap. I guess the best proxy would be Kipchoge’s 1:59 paced to use apples and apples and then we roughly have 10/120 = 8.33 percent.
So even if we use Kipchoge’s paced sub 2 as the male benchmark, this is a darn amazing performance (as was Radcliffe’s)
Ugh … math!!! LOL
My manager at Campbell Soup, who was a dedicated and very successful horse handicapper (when Garden State Park was still open, he managed his work hours so he could leave at 3 o’clock to catch the early evening races), often said “Figures never lie, but Liars figure”
I guess that meant that unscrupulous people will manipulate data to support their position?
In this case I had no position other than saying the spread to the women’s winner was around the same as Paula Radcliffe’s 2:15 day in London 2003. So the check on the 1500 and 100m record spreads was just to see what shakes out in those events (100m no drafting, 1500m women drafting women, marathon can have women drafting men).
So that’s just where the numbers landed. We can use the numbers to go ahead and do whatever stories we want to propagate now
One thing scratching my head is why she didn’t do the Olympics this year
It’s been a year of incredible performances in endurance sports. There’s nothing untoward with never been seen before performances - no eyebrows should be raised
Maybe people have heard pogacar switched breakfast cereals and are doing the same. That would certainly explain it…