The marathon of women at the World Athletics World Cup in Tokyo was only decided on the home stretch of the stadium in the early Sunday morning: Peres Jepchirchir from Kenya sprinted into the gold medal.
On the last kilometers of the race, Jepchirchir, the Olympic champion of Tokyo 2021, and the Ethiopian Tigst Assefa, Olympia-silver medalist from Paris, were running by side. But the Kenyanian finally had the better reserves. She won in 2:24:43 hours ahead of Asefa (2:24:45) and the surprise bronze medalist Julia Paternian from Uruguay (2:27:23).
Sullivan is obtained
Despite the early start time at 7.30 a.m. local time, the 73 marathon runners had to deal with temperatures of almost 30 degrees and an air humidity of around 80 percent. For a long time, the American Susanna Sullivan had determined the pace at the top. After about five kilometers, she had settled from the rest of the field, and in the meantime her lead over the pursuers was almost 30 seconds. But at kilometer 28 she could no longer counter the speed of the competition from Africa and fell back without a chance. German runners were not at the start at the World Cup marathon.