AUDIO: The crazy year of Amanal Petros (1 min)
As of: December 25, 2025 9:57 a.m
Marathon World Cup runner-up Amanal Petros delivered one of the biggest sporting moments of 2025. With his sensational silver medal from Tokyo in a furious photo finish, the athlete from Hannover 96 wrote German sports history. The record run in Valencia crowned the 30-year-old’s dream year.
In the furnace of Tokyo, gold was within Amanal Petros’s grasp. The German was three or four meters ahead of Alphonce Felix Simbu from Tanzania on the home straight after more than 42 kilometers of toil. The pain of the final sprint was written on the 30-year-old’s face, once, twice Petros looked around at his competitor and finally threw himself at the finish – with the winner’s ribbon for the marathon world champion in his hands.
“The fact that I won the World Championships silver medal is a huge gift for me.”
Amanal Petros
An anxious moment later, he dropped it and touched his head in disbelief. The certainty flashed on the scoreboard: Gold for Simbu, silver for Petros. After evaluating the target photo, the German was just three hundredths of a second short of the title. It was the closest decision in the history of the World Cup marathon to date – and one like any other sprint.
Video:
Petros takes marathon silver after photo finish – the final sprint (2 min)
“Would have, would have, bike chain”
“The last 100 meters I really thought I had gold. Simbu surprised me from behind,” Petros looks back in the NDR interview on the biggest, but immediately afterwards also the most painful moment of his career. “I didn’t sleep all night and thought: ‘Man, man, man, that could have been different,'” remembers the 30-year-old, but then adds with a broad smile: “But would have, would have, bicycle chain.”
Thinking positively and being grateful is what characterizes the Eritrean-born man who fled Ethiopia to Germany in 2012. Through running, Petros found some lightness and his path to integration into a new life.
Video:
Marathon vice world champion Petros: Happy even without World Cup gold (2 min)
Petros: “Silver medal is a huge gift”
Now Petros has written German sports history. “The fact that I won the silver medal is a huge gift for me. That’s why I’m not disappointed,” says the exceptional runner who starts for Hannover 96. “I made a small mistake because I looked backwards in the last 15 meters. I’ll take that with me as experience for later so that I don’t repeat the mistake.”
German record in Valencia
At the beginning of December on the fast Valencia circuit, Petros delivered an impeccable and tactically clever performance. Not even three months after his sensational silver in Tokyo, he won in Spain came second with a time of 2:04:03 hours, setting the German record clearly back from Samuel Fitwi.
Fought out of the hole to Tokyo
The culmination of a dream year that almost failed. “I almost wanted to cancel the Valencia marathon,” explains Petros of the sometimes tough days after the triumph in Tokyo. “I fell into a hole and it was hard to get back.” It was a “very, very long journey”.
The European record is set to fall
But one that was worth it. World Cup runner-up and German record holder – when Petros reflects on his dream year in a reflective moment, he should be proud and satisfied. And yet he is already looking forward to the new year.
Because the journey should continue, he already has his eye on the next milestone: the European record. In Valencia he was less than half a minute shy of Belgian Bashir Abdi’s continental record from 2021 (2:03:36). Look forward, don’t look back, at least in the race – that’s what the World Cup taught Petros. It is quite possible that his special year of 2025 will be followed by an equally brilliant 2026.
