2017 World Championships in Athletics – Women's marathon

The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF, now known as World Athletics) announced the qualifying criteria for the 2017 World Championships in Athletics in March 2016. For the women's marathon, the entry standard was 2:45:00,[1] one minute slower than for the 2015 World Championships, and the same as for the 2016 Olympics. Entry criteria had to be met during the qualification period: 1 October 2016, and 23 July 2017, inclusive.[2]

In November 2016, the marathon route was announced; the course consisted of four laps of a roughly 10-kilometre (6.2 mi) route passing by some of London's historic landmarks.[3] The course started and finished on Tower Bridge, travelled along Victoria Embankment along the River Thames until it reached the Houses of Parliament, looped away from the river past St Paul's Cathedral, before heading back to the Tower of London. Niels de Vos, the tournament director, said that the route was designed to be as flat as possible to allow for the possibility of fast times, while also aiming to use well-known landmarks to provide "a stunning backdrop to a huge global TV audience".[4]

For the first time in the World Championships, the men's and women's marathons were scheduled to take place on the same day; the men's race at 10:55 and the women's at 14:00.[4] The weather was forecast to be between 14 and 21 °C (57 and 70 °F), with a 18-kilometre-per-hour (11 mph) southwesterly wind which LetsRun.com suggested could be particularly significant on the exposed parts of the route along the river.[5]

The race featured ten women who had previously completed sub-2:22 marathons, leading LetsRun.com to speculate that "You won’t find a deeper marathon on planet Earth this year than the women's race at the 2017 World Championships."[5] They suggested that Edna Kiplagat of Kenya, Ethiopia's Mare Dibaba and Eunice Kirwa of Bahrain were the favourites for the race. Kiplagat had won the marathon twice before at the World Championships, in 2011 and 2013, and had won the Boston Marathon earlier in the year. Dibaba had raced at the 2017 London Marathon, where she did not finish, but was the reigning World Champion, having won in 2015. Kirwa had finished second to Dibaba in 2015, and had also been runner-up at the 2016 Olympics.[5] Athletics Weekly also predicted that Kiplagat and Mare Dibaba would finish in the top-three, but included another Ethiopian, Berhane Dibaba, alongside them.[6] Mary Keitany, who had broken the women-only marathon world record earlier in the year,[7] did not take part in the World Championships, opting instead to prepare for the 2017 New York City Marathon.[5]

The race started at 14:00 on 6 August 2017, in temperatures of 19 °C (66 °F) and a humidity level of 56%.[8] In the opening stages of the race, Portugal's Catarina Ribeiro broke away and led the first ten kilometres (6.2 mi) of the race, before she was caught by Alyson Dixon of Great Britain.[9] Ribeiro ultimately dropped out of the race, and did not finish.[8] Dixon ran alone at the head of the field, and by the halfway stage she had established a 30-second gap to the pack behind.[9] During the second half of the race, the main group closed the gap on Dixon, narrowing it to 14 seconds by the 25-kilometre (16 mi) point, and catching her just before the 30-kilometre (19 mi) point.[10] Dixon, who stayed with the leading pack for another 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) before falling back to finish 18th,[10] said after "I never in my wildest dreams expected to be leading. If you can't enjoy running a World Championship in London with that support, what are you in the sport for?"[11]

After the pack caught Dixon, Kiplagat initially took on the lead, before Australia's Jessica Trengove took over around the 35-kilometre (22 mi) mark.[10] By this stage, the leading group contained fourteen runners, but Chelimo soon increased the pace and split the pack up.[12] A group of four runners broke away at the front: Chelimo; Kiplagat; Amy Cragg of the United States; and Kenya's Flomena Cheyech Daniel.[13] Kiplagat made the next push,[10] and led with just over 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) to go; Canadian Running's Sinead Mulhern compared the finish to that of the Boston Marathon earlier in the year, when Kiplagat had beaten Chelimo in a sprint finish.[9] On this occasion, Chelimo counter-attacked and moved back ahead of Kiplagat, who could not respond; and Chelimo held on to claim the gold medal by seven seconds, in 2:27:11. Behind the pair, Cragg managed a sprint finish to beat Daniel to third place, and almost caught Kiplagat; both runners were credited with a finish time of 2:27.18.[10] Dagmara Handzlik of Cyprus, who finished 35th in a time of 2:38:52, established a new national record.[8]

• Official highlights on YouTube