Ethiopian runner Tamirat Tola won the men’s division at the 2023 New York City Marathon on Sunday in two hours, four minutes and 58 seconds, a course record.
The 32-year-old and 2022 world champion distanced himself from the field to win his first World Major Marathon in the grueling race that spans New York’s five boroughs. Albert Korir finished second in 2:06:57 and Shura Kitata was third in 2:07:11.
Tamirat Tola of Ethiopia is the men's open-division winner, setting a course-record time of 2:04:58. #TCSNYCMarathon pic.twitter.com/VZRtRRrZxa
— TCS New York City Marathon (@nycmarathon) November 5, 2023
Futsum Zeinasellassie was the fastest American finisher on the men’s side, running a 2:12:09 for 10th place. The race was without defending champion Evans Chebet, who won in 2:08:41 last year, and Geoffrey Kamworor, who has won the race twice. Both men withdrew from the field in October.
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Since Geoffrey Mutai set the previous course record in 2011 with a 2:05:06, only four men had run under 2:08 on the famously difficult course before Tola did so Sunday.
Kenyan runner Hellen Obiri won the women’s race Sunday in 2:27:23. Switzerland’s Marcel Hug and Catherine Debrunner won the men’s and women’s wheelchair events. Hug’s win was his third straight and sixth overall in New York — he finished in 1:25:29, just three seconds shy of his course record — while Debrunner set a women’s course record with her time of 1:39:32.
Tola’s win came in the sixth and final World Marathon Major of the year. It wraps up a busy fall for the sport, which saw the men’s and women’s marathon world records fall in the span of two weeks in September and October.
First, Ethiopian Tigst Assefa broke the women’s record on Sept. 24 with her time of 2:11:53 in Berlin. Kenyan Kelvin Kiptum shattered the men’s record with his 2:00:35 in Chicago on Oct. 8, 34 seconds better than Eliud Kipchoge’s previous record.
Since 2017, the men’s and women’s records have been broken three times each.
What to make of the results and what’s next
In a record-shattering year in marathon running, the New York race came just in time for people who prefer mano-a-mano racing to something more akin to time trials.
This is the way it always is for the last of the World Marathon Majors, which include Boston, Tokyo, London, Chicago, Berlin and New York. Especially so in this big year for distance running that saw Assefa break the women’s record and Kiptum the men’s.
The reason for all those records has been fairly obvious for a while now — humans have not suddenly made some incredible evolutionary leap, but their shoes did.
The so-called “super shoes,” which come with next-generation foam technology and a carbon fiber plate that springs the body forward and returns energy to the legs with every step, have completely altered both the record book and our understanding of the world’s most celebrated long-distance races. Put the world’s fastest distance runners in those shoes on a flat course (Berlin, London, Chicago) on a cool morning and give them some pace-setters to keep them on track during the first half of the race, and records will fall.
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But in a year that saw so many records fall in dramatic fashion, it’s important to note what didn’t happen, both in the spring and Sunday in New York, where the speed can often fall short.
In Boston in April, Kipchoge, the most celebrated distance runner of his era and the only man to run the marathon distance in less than two hours (albeit in an unsanctioned time trial), couldn’t win the hilly Boston marathon in his debut attempt at the world’s most storied marathon.
Then came Sunday in hilly New York, where Tola won the men’s division with a course record, but the time was more than four minutes and just under a mile off the world record pace. That forced Tola to grind down the competition on the bridges and the hilly second half of the course, just as every winner does.
The women’s race — in which Obiri out-paced Gidey, the world record holder in the 10,000 meters and the half marathon, over the last miles in and around Central Park to win by six seconds — might look less than spectacular in an era when a woman has broken 2:12. But that is the beauty of New York.
This race, and Boston, too, will always belong to the grinders. Obiri has shown her chops on that front, winning Boston in April. Gidey had shown those grinding chops, too, winning the marathon at the world championships in the heat of the summer in Oregon last year.
Now they have shown it once more. With the biggest race next year at the Olympics in Paris, don’t be surprised to see those two landing on the podium rather than just the speed demons. — Matthew Futterman, senior writer
Required reading
(Photo: Thomas Salus / USA Today)
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