Boston Marathon: Live Updates, Results and Photos

On Monday, the 127th edition of the Boston Marathon served up its usual grab bag of triumphs and small calamities. In defending his men’s title, Evans Chebet of Kenya used his experience to separate himself from a celebrated field that included Eliud Kipchoge, the world-record holder. And Hellen Obiri exercised patience to make it a Kenyan sweep by taking the women’s crown in only her second marathon.

“When it comes to running a marathon, anything can happen,” said Obiri, 33, who embraced her 7-year-old daughter, Tania, after crossing the finish line in 2 hours 21 minutes 38 seconds. “It’s a long, long way.”

A long, long way for about 30,000 athletes who tackled the course amid cold, early-morning drizzles, and a long, long way for Kipchoge, the biggest luminary of them all.

Kipchoge, 38, arrived in Boston last week having achieved nearly everything that there is to achieve in the sport of running, winning two Olympic gold medals and 10 world marathon majors. Last year, he broke his own world record when he won the Berlin Marathon for the fourth time in 2:01:09.

But he had never run Boston, which is notorious for its rolling hills. And only rarely has he had to settle for bib No. 2, but Monday was one of those days. Bib No. 1 belonged to Chebet, 34, as the defending champion.

Still, Kipchoge seemed determined to assert himself from the start, leading the elite men through the opening mile in a lung-searing 4:35. And there he stayed, up at the front, all the way to Mile 20, when Chebet made a surge and Kipchoge crumbled.

Chebet and Benson Kipruto, the 2021 champion, are training partners, and they agreed to work together. They even shared a water bottle a couple of miles from the finish. More important, neither seemed in awe of Kipchoge. In fact, they appeared motivated by his presence, as if they had something to prove against him.

“Our confidence in the quality of our training made us feel good about taking on this race,” Chebet said.

Chebet won in 2:05:54. Gabriel Geay of Tanzania finished second, and Kipruto was third. Kipchoge finished sixth in 2:09:23, his poorest showing since he placed eighth at the London Marathon in 2020.

Kipchoge, who did not appear at a post-race news conference, congratulated his competitors in a statement released to race organizers.

“I live for the moments where I get to challenge the limits,” he said. “It’s never guaranteed, it’s never easy. Today was a tough day for me. I pushed myself as hard as I could. But sometimes, we must accept that today wasn’t the day to push the barrier to a greater height.”

Chebet, who also won the New York City Marathon in November, said Monday’s win was the greatest result of his career. He became the first man since Robert Kipkoech Cheruiyot in 2008 to defend his Boston title.

“I’m happy because I know this race,” Chebet said. “So maybe next year I’ll come back and win it again.”

Obiri approached Boston as something of a marathon neophyte, even though she was already a legend on the global running stage. She is the only woman to have won world titles in indoor track, outdoor track and cross-country. She also has two Olympic silver medals in the 5,000 meters.

Last year, she joined the On Athletics Club and moved to Boulder, Colo., so she could be coached by Dathan Ritzenhein, the former Olympic marathoner. Obiri’s younger teammates sometimes refer to their training runs with her as doing “Obiri miles,” which means they are hard miles.

But like Kipchoge, Obiri is not immune to tough tests and even the occasional mistake. When she made her marathon debut in New York in November, she went out too hard — she doubled as a “pacemaker,” she said — and faded to a sixth-place finish. She also erred by failing to consume enough water and electrolytes. In hindsight, Ritzenhein said, the experience taught her a great deal.

“It really made her fear and respect the event,” he said.

But Obiri was not exactly in a rush to do another marathon. A few days after she won the New York City Half Marathon last month, Ritzenhein gauged her interest in entering Boston. Obiri asked if she could have a week to think it over.

“No,” Ritzenhein recalled telling her, “text me tonight.”

Obiri decided to go for it. Ritzenhein said her training, which included a long, consistent stretch of 100-mile weeks, gave him the confidence that she could excel in Boston, with a fresh opportunity to put many of the lessons she had learned into practice. Ritzenhein advised her to be cautious through the first 21 miles.

“She was smart and just waited,” he said. “I didn’t think she could wait as long as she did.”

Obiri is a ferocious runner, with long, loping strides. And at Mile 24, she pushed forward. The wait was over. Ritzenhein said he could sense as much from her stride. “The power came out,” he said.

Obiri doubled over with emotion after she crossed the finish line. Amane Beriso of Ethiopia was 12 seconds back in second place, and Lonah Salpeter of Israel finished third.

“I was feeling like my body was ready and everything was ready,” Obiri said. “And I said to myself, I can’t do it from the front. If I can just wait, wait — because my coach told me that the marathon is about patience. So I tried to be patient until the right time.”

Emma Bates, a native of Elk River, Minn., ran in the lead pack for much of the race and placed fifth as the top American. Scott Fauble finished seventh as the top American man.

It is one thing to study a map and be forewarned. It is another thing altogether to lace up your carbon-plated super sneakers and experience it firsthand.

On Monday, the 127th edition of the Boston Marathon served up its usual grab bag of triumphs and small calamities. In defending his men’s title, Evans Chebet of Kenya used his experience to separate himself from a celebrated field that included Eliud Kipchoge, the world-record holder. And Hellen Obiri exercised patience to make it a Kenyan sweep by taking the women’s crown in only her second marathon.

“When it comes to running a marathon, anything can happen,” said Obiri, 33, who embraced her 7-year-old daughter, Tania, after crossing the finish line in 2 hours 21 minutes 38 seconds. “It’s a long, long way.”

A long, long way for about 30,000 athletes who tackled the course amid cold, early-morning drizzles, and a long, long way for Kipchoge, the biggest luminary of them all.

Kipchoge, 38, arrived in Boston last week having achieved nearly everything that there is to achieve in the sport of running, winning two Olympic gold medals and 10 world marathon majors. Last year, he broke his own world record when he won the Berlin Marathon for the fourth time in 2:01:09.

But he had never run Boston, which is notorious for its rolling hills. And only rarely has he had to settle for bib No. 2, but Monday was one of those days. Bib No. 1 belonged to Chebet, 34, as the defending champion.

Still, Kipchoge seemed determined to assert himself from the start, leading the elite men through the opening mile in a lung-searing 4:35. And there he stayed, up at the front, all the way to Mile 20, when Chebet made a surge and Kipchoge crumbled.

Chebet and Benson Kipruto, the 2021 champion, are training partners, and they agreed to work together. They even shared a water bottle a couple of miles from the finish. More important, neither seemed in awe of Kipchoge. In fact, they appeared motivated by his presence, as if they had something to prove against him.

“Our confidence in the quality of our training made us feel good about taking on this race,” Chebet said.

Chebet won in 2:05:54. Gabriel Geay of Tanzania finished second, and Kipruto was third. Kipchoge finished sixth in 2:09:23, his poorest showing since he placed eighth at the London Marathon in 2020.

Kipchoge, who did not appear at a post-race news conference, congratulated his competitors in a statement released to race organizers.

“I live for the moments where I get to challenge the limits,” he said. “It’s never guaranteed, it’s never easy. Today was a tough day for me. I pushed myself as hard as I could. But sometimes, we must accept that today wasn’t the day to push the barrier to a greater height.”

Chebet, who also won the New York City Marathon in November, said Monday’s win was the greatest result of his career. He became the first man since Robert Kipkoech Cheruiyot in 2008 to defend his Boston title.

“I’m happy because I know this race,” Chebet said. “So maybe next year I’ll come back and win it again.”

Obiri approached Boston as something of a marathon neophyte, even though she was already a legend on the global running stage. She is the only woman to have won world titles in indoor track, outdoor track and cross-country. She also has two Olympic silver medals in the 5,000 meters.

Last year, she joined the On Athletics Club and moved to Boulder, Colo., so she could be coached by Dathan Ritzenhein, the former Olympic marathoner. Obiri’s younger teammates sometimes refer to their training runs with her as doing “Obiri miles,” which means they are hard miles.

But like Kipchoge, Obiri is not immune to tough tests and even the occasional mistake. When she made her marathon debut in New York in November, she went out too hard — she doubled as a “pacemaker,” she said — and faded to a sixth-place finish. She also erred by failing to consume enough water and electrolytes. In hindsight, Ritzenhein said, the experience taught her a great deal.

“It really made her fear and respect the event,” he said.

But Obiri was not exactly in a rush to do another marathon. A few days after she won the New York City Half Marathon last month, Ritzenhein gauged her interest in entering Boston. Obiri asked if she could have a week to think it over.

“No,” Ritzenhein recalled telling her, “text me tonight.”

Obiri decided to go for it. Ritzenhein said her training, which included a long, consistent stretch of 100-mile weeks, gave him the confidence that she could excel in Boston, with a fresh opportunity to put many of the lessons she had learned into practice. Ritzenhein advised her to be cautious through the first 21 miles.

“She was smart and just waited,” he said. “I didn’t think she could wait as long as she did.”

Obiri is a ferocious runner, with long, loping strides. And at Mile 24, she pushed forward. The wait was over. Ritzenhein said he could sense as much from her stride. “The power came out,” he said.

Obiri doubled over with emotion after she crossed the finish line. Amane Beriso of Ethiopia was 12 seconds back in second place, and Lonah Salpeter of Israel finished third.

“I was feeling like my body was ready and everything was ready,” Obiri said. “And I said to myself, I can’t do it from the front. If I can just wait, wait — because my coach told me that the marathon is about patience. So I tried to be patient until the right time.”

Emma Bates, a native of Elk River, Minn., ran in the lead pack for much of the race and placed fifth as the top American. Scott Fauble finished seventh as the top American man.

Not even an hour after Dempster pitched for the Red Sox on April 15, two bombs exploded near the marathon’s finish line, a little more than a mile from Fenway Park. Dempster recently told Peter Abraham of The Boston Globe that he will “never forget that day” and that his season in Boston felt like 10 “with everything that happened.”

“The way the city allowed us to have a small role in people recovering changed my perspective about baseball,” Dempster told The Globe. “That’s why I wanted to come back and run the Marathon. Of course I had to do it in Boston.”

Dempster is running in honor of Lu Lingzi, a Boston University student who was killed in the attack.

Soon after Obiri won, though, Bates crossed the line in fifth place, the best finish by an American woman. Bates, a native of Elk River, Minn., stayed in contention until the final mile and completed the course in 2 hours, 22 minutes and 10 seconds, a personal best by more than one minute.

Afterward, Bates said that she didn’t expect to be in front so late. Her coach, she said, had advised her to focus on staying in the chase pack, behind the top women, and then pounce toward the end.

“But I just felt so good the entire time,” Bates said. “And I got to Mile 20 and was still in the lead, and I just looked at my coach, who was at Mile 20, and I was like, ‘I guess I’m in front,’ and so he said, ‘Just go for it, go for it.’”

Bates, 30, who finished second in Chicago in 2021, secured a qualifying time for the 2024 Paris Olympics — and bolstered her status as a top contender for next February’s trials.

The top American male finisher was Scott Fauble, who came in seventh — for the third time in his last five Boston Marathons. Fauble, 31, finished in 2:09:44, 21 seconds behind the world-record holder Eliud Kipchoge, who came in sixth.

“I was focused on winning my group and trying to finish as high as possible,” Fauble said. “I didn’t realize it was Kipchoge until afterwards.”

Jonathan Ellis contributed reporting from Boston.

Obiri, who was competing in just her second marathon, showed her speed with about a half-mile left in the race, pumping her arms hard and leaving the rest of the group behind her. Obiri finished sixth in the New York City Marathon last year, her only other race of this distance. She won the New York City Half Marathon on March 19.

After that race, Obiri moved to Boulder, Colo., with her husband, Tom Nyaundi, and their 7-year-old daughter, Tania, to train. Obiri said she was anxious about racing in Boston, unsure how she would match up with the talented field.

“It’s a surprise to me,” Obiri said with a smile, her daughter standing next to her. Obiri said her daughter motivates her, and often peppers her with questions like, “You can’t be number one?”

“So I try to make them happy,” Obiri said, “because sometimes I don’t want to go, but something tells you to try to keep on fighting. So I kept on fighting.”

Amane Beriso of Ethiopia finished second, and Lonah Salpeter of Israel finished third.

Yeshaneh, who finished second in this race last year, recovered from her fall and at moments looked as if she could win, but she faded away at the end, finishing fourth.

American Emma Bates, who was a part of the group at Mile 23, could not keep the pace at the end of the race, finishing in fifth place.

Chebet, a 34-year-old Kenyan, is the first man to win the Boston Marathon in back-to-back years since Robert Kipkoech Cheruiyot won three straight in 2006 to 2008. Chebet hinted at a three-peat after the win.

“I’m happy because I won last year and this year, so maybe next year I’ll come back again,” he said. Chebet said his experience running the course last year gave him an advantage during Monday’s rainy conditions. He was faster by nearly a full minute.

Chebet had been among a pack of eleven runners that Kipchoge seemed to be comfortably leading, until Gabriel Geay, who finished second led an aggressive move at the 19-mile mark, and the pack left Kipchoge behind them.

Chebet has won his last three marathons, also winning the New York City race last year.

It was a shocking upset for Kipchoge, the greatest marathon runner of all time, who finished in sixth place. Kipchoge’s time was 2 hours 9 minutes and 23 seconds, his slowest marathon finish ever.

Kipchoge has only lost two marathons in 15 attempts, which includes 10 world marathon major wins. It was his first time running at the Boston Marathon on a day laden with rain and a course with a hilly terrain that forces many runners to struggle. Kipchoge’s last marathon loss came at the 2020 London Marathon in similar rainy conditions.

Kipchoge, 38, has said that running all six major marathons is on his “bucket list.” He now has just the New York City Marathon to check off his list, which will happen in November.

Second-place finishers receive $75,000, $15,000, $2,500 and $750 in those respective categories.

By breaking his own course record by nearly a minute, Marcel Hug of Switzerland, the men’s wheelchair champion, will receive an additional $50,000.

The men’s race has whittled to three athletes: Evans Chebet of Kenya, the defending champion; Benson Kipruto of Kenya, the 2021 champion; and Gabriel Geay of Tanzania, in search of his first marquee win. Chebet is out front by a few meters, but Kipruto and Geay are working to track his every move.

Three men with a chance to win with 22 miles finished. Chebet has definitely been controlling things at the front.

Eliud Kipchoge is now 51 seconds behind Evans Chebet, his fellow Kenyan. The Boston Marathon can humble even the most decorated champions.

Though the ESPN broadcast may have vaguely suggested that Eliud Kipchoge might be dropping out, he’s still running. His pace has slowed, though.

Evans Chebet of Kenya, the defending men’s champion, is making his own move now, putting distance between himself and Gabriel Geay. Chebet knows the course and knows what it takes to win here. Kipchoge is about 20 seconds behind.

The surge by Chebet seems to have taken Andualem Belay out of it. Four men up front.

At Mile 19, the question is whether Eliud Kipchoge is conserving energy for the hills to come or if he’s really struggling. But that gap is growing between him and the five leaders.

Benson Kipruto, Gabriel Geay, Evans Chebet, John Korir and Andualem Belay are now together in front. And Eliud Kipchoige has been distanced by this group. What a shock.

The first big move on the men’s side, as Gabriel Geay of Tanzania makes a surge to separate himself. And in a huge surprise, Eliud Kipchoge is now struggling to stick with four others who are working to bridge the gap to Geay.

Geay ran a blistering 2 hours 3 minutes in Valencia in December, but only ran second that day. Though he has been with the leaders in a number of big events, he lacks a marquee win.

Seven men lead the way: Eliud Kipchoge, Evans Chebet, John Korir, Albert Korir, Andualem Belay, Gabriel Geay and Benson Kipruto.

And those lead men are about to hit the hills. Stay tuned.

There are just a few items left on her checklist.

She would like to win Olympic gold and set a world record. Doing either in the marathon seems like a legitimate possibility, even if she has run the distance in elite competition only once.

“I think for the second one, I’ll know what I’m doing,” Obiri said before announcing she would be running in this year’s Boston Marathon, joining the fastest and most decorated lineup the race has had.

That calm confidence is sure to stoke fear in her competitors, despite the depth of the field. Of the women who will toe the starting line in suburban Hopkinton, Mass., 14 have run the marathon faster than 2 hours 21 minutes. Five have run under 2:18.

That’s exactly why her coach, Dathan Ritzenhein, thought the race would be good for Obiri.

“She’s just a good racer,” Ritzenhein said. “She’s best at competing.”

In Boston, with a notoriously difficult and often slow course, she is going to have to keep herself in check, she said. “It’s about patience in a marathon. I’ve got to focus on patience, patience, patience,” she said, speaking like a student of the distance and an expert in the art of racing. “That’s what I’m going to do in Boston.”

Hug, 37, avenged last year’s misfortune — citing illness, he withdrew less than an hour before the start — by completing the hilly course with his next closest competitors more than two miles behind him.

Nicknamed the “Silver Bullet” for the shiny helmet he wears, Hug led by 30 seconds after five kilometers — and by more than four minutes at the halfway point. He kept going and going, all the way to a grueling, glorious end.

He breaks his own world record over and over. It’s now down to 2 hours, 1 minute and 9 seconds.

He is the only human (as far as we know) to have run 26.2 miles in less than two hours, finishing a course in Vienna designed to optimize speed, with a pace team taking turns blocking the wind, in 1 hour 59 minutes 40 seconds. That is an average pace of 4 minutes 34.5 seconds for a 26.2-mile race.

But Kipchoge is confronting a new challenge as he tries to win the Boston Marathon, a historic, hilly beast of a course where tactics usually trump speed. Boston could not be more different from the mostly flat marathons in Berlin and London, races that can resemble time trials.

Even he doesn’t know how his body will react, or if he will be able to continue the magic. But Boston is the oldest continuously run marathon, a race that Kipchoge said was on his bucket list for a while. He especially wanted to run on the 10th anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing, “to spread the word of positivity, the human family,” he said, even if he is feeling unsettled ahead of the competition in a way he is not used to feeling.

“I don’t know what will happen at 10, 15, 25 kilometers,” he said during an interview last month from Kenya, where he was training. “It’s a huge experience and a different experience than many other marathons. That’s what makes me nervous.”

Peres Jepchirchir of Kenya opted to enter the London Marathon later this month rather than defend her title in Boston.

Buzunesh Deba of Ethiopia set the course record of 2:19:59 in 2014.

The elite men’s field for Monday’s Boston Marathon is absolutely loaded. What more can be said about Kipchoge, the two-time Olympic gold medalist who has accomplished nearly everything in the sport? This will be his first time racing in Boston, and he said he was looking forward to the challenge. Since arriving last week, he has been treated like royalty and posed for dozens of selfies with runners who have spotted him training along the Charles River.

Chebet, who followed up his victory in Boston last year by winning in New York in November, figures to offer stiff competition. And Kipruto, who finished third in Boston last year, also has the advantage of being familiar with the course’s brutal hills.

Seldom, if ever, has there been a deeper field, but breaking the course record (2 hours 3 minutes 2 seconds) might be a hard task. Geoffrey Mutai, another Kenyan, set that mark in 2011 when the field was pushed along by a huge tailwind.

Scott Fauble is back after finishing as the top American last year at seventh.