2015 World Championships in Athletics – Women's marathon


The women's marathon at the 2015 World Championships in Athletics was held at the Beijing National Stadium on 30 August.

Summary

Under overcast skies the race quickly formed two large packs of about 20 runners. For the next 25K, the lead pack remained about the same size with some runners bridging the gap in time for others to fall off the pace. Between 25K and 30K, the pack dropped to a dozen runners. Just after 31K, defending champion Edna Kiplagat accelerated. In the next 4K, the lead pack cut in half, the remaining athletes were three Kenyans, two Ethiopians and Eunice Kirwa wearing a Bahrain uniform, from Kenya. London Marathon champion Tigist Tufa was the first to fall back, then Kiplagat began to lose contact. But the four person pack remained tougher into the stadium. Four athletes to sprint it out on the track for three medals after running 26 miles. Mare Dibaba led the group toward the tunnel. As they started to speed up, Jemima Sumgong did not have another gear. Kirwa was perfectly positioned to strike but instead Helah Kiprop launched the attack from the back after looking like she was ready to drop off, long striding behind the diminutive Dibaba. 60 metres before the finish they were almost even, but Dibaba would not give that last few inches.
Then Dibaba sped away to cross the line with almost 7 metres gap. The times had a second between first and second, a four-second gap amongst the medalists and a 7-second gap back to fourth place. On every count, the closest Marathon finish in World Championship history.
It was four Kenyan born athletes in places 2–5, Ethiopia and Japan placed three each in the top 14 places.

Records

Prior to the competition, the records were as follows:
World record2:15:25London, United Kingdom13 April 2003
Championship record2:20:57Helsinki, Finland14 August 2005
World leading2:19.52Xiamen, China3 January 2015
African record2:18:37London, United Kingdom22 April 2012
Asian record2:19:12Berlin, Germany25 September 2005
NACAC record2:19:36London, United Kingdom23 April 2006
South American record2:26:40Berlin, Germany28 September 2014
European record2:15:25London, United Kingdom13 April 2003
Oceanian record2:22:36Chicago, United States22 October 2006

Qualification standards

Schedule

Results

The race was started at 07:30.
KEY:NRNational recordPBPersonal bestSBSeasonal best

RankNameNationalityTimeNotes
Mare Dibaba2:27:35
Helah Kiprop2:27:36
Eunice Kirwa2:27:39
Jemima Sumgong2:27:42
Edna Kiplagat2:28:18
Tigist Tufa2:29:12
Mai Ito2:29:48
Tirfi Tsegaye2:30:54
Kim Hye-song2:30:59
10Serena Burla2:31:06
11Rasa Drazdauskaitė2:31:23
12Filomena Costa2:31:40
13Sairi Maeda2:31:46
14Risa Shigetomo2:32:37
15Alina Prokopeva2:32:44
16Ding Changqin2:33:04
17Alessandra Aguilar2:33:42
18O. P. Jaisha2:34:43
19Sudha Singh2:35:35
20Visiline Jepkesho2:36:17
21Sinead Diver2:36:38
22Katarína Berešová2:37:24
23Sarah Klein2:37:58
24Esther Erb2:38:15
25Lishan Dula2:38:18
26Clara Canchanya2:39:24
27Liina Luik2:39:42
28Wang Xueqin2:41:42
29Anne-Mari Hyryläinen2:41:59
30Kim Seongeun2:42:14
31Kateryna Karmanenko2:43:12
32Yiu Kit Ching2:43:28
33Annelie Johansson2:43:42
34Nebiat Habtemariam2:44:42
35Munkhzaya Bayartsogt2:45:01
36Iuliia Andreeva2:45:04
37He Yinli2:45:05
38Lily Luik2:45:22
39Anita Kažemāka2:45:54
40Gulzhanat Zhanatbek2:45:54
41Yeum Go-eun2:46:46
42Aster Tesfaye2:46:54
43Sultan Haydar2:47:11
44Charlotte Karlsson2:47:40
45Hsu Yu-fang2:48:01
46Julia Degan2:49:26
47Roselaine Benites2:49:28
48Louise Wiker2:49:57
49Niluka Geethani Rajasekara2:50:40
50Mayada Al-Sayad2:53:39
51Dailín Belmonte2:56:18
52Hsieh Chien-ho2:58:25
Souad Aït Salem
Hortensia Arzapalo
Michele Cristina das Chagas
Barkahoum Drici
Sitora Hamidova
Kim Hye-gyong
Soumiya Labani
Heather Lieberg
Luvsanlkhündegiin Otgonbayar
Tanith Maxwell
Beata Naigambo
Irina Smolnikova
Paula Todoran
Lalita Babar
Olena Popova