Ethiopian cross-country skier Tigst Assefa crosses the finish line at the BMW Berlin Marathon. Assefa improves the women’s marathon world record to 2 hours 11 minutes and 53 seconds in the victory in Berlin. Andreas Gora/dpaEthiopia’s Tigst Assefa broke the women’s marathon world record by more than two minutes when she clocked 2 hours, 11 minutes and 53 seconds for back-to-back wins in Berlin.
Assefa improved Kenyan Brigid Kosgei’s previous record 2019 in Chicago by 2:11 minutes, and her personal best from last year’s victory in the German capital by 3:44 minutes over 42.195 kilometres.
Assefa and his pacemakers were on their own after 16km, despite a super-fast pace with several runners under world-record pace in the early stages.
But Assefa was the only one keeping pace and ultimately won by a huge margin of nearly six minutes over Kenyan Sheila Chepkirui, who had 2:17.49. Magdalena Shauri of Tanzania was third in 2:18:41 while eight women finished under 2:20 hours.
Ethiopian cross-country skier Tigst Assefa reacts after winning the BMW Berlin Marathon. Assefa improves the women’s marathon world record to 2 hours 11 minutes and 53 seconds in the victory in Berlin. Andreas Gora/dpa
Ethiopian cross-country skier Tigst Assefa reacts after winning the BMW Berlin Marathon. Andreas Gora/dpa
