The Kenyan Brigid Kosgei has won the Chicago marathon, one of the World Majors, in a new world record of 2:14:04. Ever since the London Marathon in 2003, that world record had been in the name of the British Paula Radcliffe, who then clocked 2:15:25.
Because Kosgei ran a crazy pace in the initial phase and was on schedule for a Chrono at around 2:10 AM, many observers expected that she would meet the man with the hammer and stop. Of course, she couldn’t keep her pace from the first half of the match, but she never collapsed. Kosgei even accelerated a little at the end to finally arrive at 2:14:04, more than a minute below Paula Radcliffe’s sixteen-year-old record.
The personal record of Kosgei was at 2:18:20, before she started her match in Chicago, and went on for more than four minutes on Sunday. Second place went to Ethiopian Ababel Yeshaneh at 2:20:51, third to another Ethiopian, Gelete Burka at 2:20:55.
