London Marathon debut win for Joyciline Jepkosgei

Joyciline Jepkosgei earned a runaway victory on her London Marathon debut in 2 hours 17min 43sec as Kenyan compatriot Brigid Kosgei, the world record-holder who had been seeking a third consecutive title, finished fourth.

The men’s race saw another clear winner as Ethiopia’s Sisay Lemma earned the best result of his career, moving away from a field stacked with sub-2:04:00 runners over the final two kilometres to finish in 2:04:01.

The men’s and women’s wheelchair races saw similar lone victors in the form of Switzerland’s Marcel Hug and Manuela Schär, with each winning a third London title.

Jepkosgei, a former world half marathon record-holder who won in New York two years ago in her first race over the marathon distance, was always pushing on at the front of a leading group that comprised five runners in the second half of the race.

The Kenyan pair were accompanied by two Ethiopians, 22-year-old Degitu Azimeraw, winner of the 2019 Amsterdam Marathon, and Ashete Bekere, fourth in the 2019 London Marathon, along with Israel’s Lonah Salpeter, a frontrunner in the Tokyo Olympic marathon until menstrual cramps sent her back down to 66th place.

With 35 of the 42.2km gone the race arrived at its crucial point as Jepkosgei, whose legs had not been tired by a draining Olympic race, pushed on and Kosgei was the first to drop back.

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Soon Salpeter was also back down the road, and the two Ethiopians also, as the 27-year-old, who set a marathon personal best of 2:18:40 in finishing second at last year’s race in Valencia and won last month’s Berlin Half Marathon in a course record of 65min 16sec, strode away.