Edesa retains marathon title in Osaka

Ethiopia’s Workenesh Edesa successfully defended her title at the Osaka Women’s Marathon, a World Athletics Platinum Label road race, on Sunday 26 January.

The course record-holder, who ran 2:18:51 when winning last year, this time clocked 2:21:00 to take the top spot ahead of Japan’s Kana Kobayashi and Yuka Suzuki, who both ran big PBs.

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Seven runners joined the pacemakers in covering the first 5km in 16:50 and they passed 10km in 33:23.

Japan’s Mizuki Matsuda and Natsumi Matsushita plus Israel’s Lonah Chemtai Salpeter started to fall behind after 12km.

Edesa, Kobayashi, Suzuki, and Japan’s Nanaka Izawa, who was making her marathon debut, remained together, passing 15km in 50:02 and 20km in 1:06:32.

Kobayashi fell behind after 21km, only to regain contact a few kilometers later, but she was dropped again, leaving Edesa, Suzuki, and Izawa to pass the 25km mark in the lead in 1:22:53.

Izawa was next to go, and by 28km Suzuki was also gone from the lead pack. Edesa passed 30km alone in 1:56:06, 17 seconds ahead of Suzuki, with Kobayashi another 34 seconds back.

Edesa continued to run solo, passing 40km in 2:13:26. Suzuki was 18 seconds behind, but Kobayashi was closing the gap and was 16 seconds behind Suzuki at that point.

Edesa’s victory was never in doubt and she won in 2:21:00, while Kobayashi passed Suzuki with 800m to go to move into second place.

Suzuki couldn’t respond so Kobayashi secured the runner-up spot in 2:21:19, improving on her previous PB of 2:24:59, while Suzuki was third in 2:21:33, improving her own previous best of 2:24:02.

Paris Olympic ninth-place finisher Salpeter, who was the fastest in the field thanks to her PB of 2:17:45 set in Tokyo in 2020, clocked 2:24:03 to finish fourth, while Matsushita was fifth in 2:26:04.

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“I am happy to defend the title from 2024,” said Edesa. “My goal is to further improve my personal best.”

Kobayashi said: “It hasn't dawned on me yet. My goal was to clinch the World Championships marathon team berth by running 2:23. I am surprised to perform this well. Fans along the route encouraged me by saying the leaders were slowing down, which gave me the power to push on.”

Leading results

1 Workenesh Edesa (ETH) 2:21:00

2 Kana Kobayashi (JPN) 2:21:19

3 Yuka Suzuki (JPN) 2:21:33

4 Lonah Chemtai Salpeter (ISR) 2:24:03

5 Natsumi Matsushita (JPN) 2:26:04

6 Chiharu Suzuki (JPN) 2:26:41

7 Mizuki Matsuda (JPN) 2:27:11

8 Nanaka Izawa (JPN) 2:29:28

By World Athletics