Kenya celebrated a double triumph in the 51st Berlin Marathon on Sunday with first-place finishes in both the men’s and women’s races.
The men’s race was won by 29-year-old Sabastian Sawe with a time of 2:02:15 — five months after his victory in the London marathon — while the women’s race was won by Rosemary Wanjiru with a time of 2:21:05.
Despite Berlin’s reputation as the fastest marathon route on the world circuit, both times were significantly off world-record time (Sawe 1:40 slower, Wanjiru 11:49 slower).
This can likely be attributed to the unusually humid late-summer conditions in the German capital as Berlin enjoyed late-summer temperatures of between 23-29°C (73-84°F).
“It was hard but I gave my best and I’m happy about my performance,” Sawe told Germany’s RTL network after finishing ahead of Japan’s Akira Akasaki in second (2:06:15) and Ethiopia’s Chimdessa Debele (2:06:57).
“I felt good,” continued Sawe. “You can’t change the weather, of course. I was well prepared and I’m just pleased. I enjoyed the atmosphere in Berlin. I’m happy to be here and want to be back next year. I hope I can go a bit better.”
On the women’s side, Wanjiru, who finished second in Berlin in 2022, became the first Kenyan woman to win the race since 2018 after surging ahead after 25 kilometers.
She had a 36-second lead at the 40-kilometer (24.85 miles) mark but slowed slightly, allowing the chasers to cut the margin. As Ethiopia’s Dera Dida closed in with the Brandenburg Gate in sight, Wanjiru dug deep, pushing on to finish just three seconds ahead of her rival.
Harry Styles among celebrity participants
The elite runners at the front of the pack were followed by over 55,000 other athletes with varying aims — some serious runners looking to achieve personal bests, and others just hoping to finish one way or another.
Among the celebrities taking part were former footballers André Schürrle (a German World Cup winner in 2014) and Felix Kroos (bother of former Real Madrid star Toni), as well as pop star Harry Styles. The 31-year-old former One Direction singer also took part in the Tokyo marathon in March.
After Berlin city mayor Kai Wegner (CDU) fired the starting gun in the form of a big red button, the runners were cheered on along the route by hundreds of thousands of spectators, while hundreds of volunteers distributed 120,000 bananas, 80,000 apples and 1.25 million cups of water to keep the runners energized and hydrated.
Starting near the iconic Brandenburg Gate, the runners initially headed west through Berlin’s famous Tiergarten before embarking on a clockwise loop around the city center, passing through the districts of Moabit, Prenzlauer Berg, Friedrichshain, Kreuzberg and Neukölln.
The second half of the marathon saw the route head south to Schöneberg and Steglitz before coming back towards Mitte via Charlottenburg and finishing back at the Brandenburg Gate at the end of the Unter den Linden boulevard.
Edited by: Dmytro Hubenko
