Kenyans Sabastian Sawe and Rosemary Wanjiru won the Berlin Marathon as warm conditions (mid-70s) blanketed what is typically one of the world’s fastest 26.2-mile races.
Sawe, arguably the world’s best active marathoner, won the men’s race in an unofficial 2 hours, 2 minutes, 16 seconds, prevailing by nearly four minutes for his third victory in three career races at the distance.
Sawe, 29, previously ran the second-fastest debut marathon in history (Valencia 2024 in 2:02:05), then won the London Marathon last April 27 in 2:02:27. Sawe ran the world’s fastest marathon of 2024 and has the world’s two fastest marathons of 2025.
He went out Sunday at world record pace, clocked 60:16 at the halfway point. Sawe ran the last 11 miles alone after his last pacer dropped. The world record is 2:00:35, set by the late Kenyan Kelvin Kiptum at the 2023 Chicago Marathon.
BERLIN MARATHON: Results
Sawe is the fifth-fastest man in history behind Kiptum, Eliud Kipchoge (2:01:09), Kenenisa Bekele (2:01:41) and Sisay Lemma (2:01:48).
Wanjiru, 30, clocked an unofficial 2:21:05, holding off Dera Dida of Ethiopia by three seconds for the second major marathon title of her career.
Wanjiru finished second in Berlin in 2022 in her marathon debut, then won the 2023 Tokyo Marathon. She is the 10th-fastest woman in history with a personal best of 2:16:14 from a runner-up at Tokyo 2024.
The fall marathon season continues Oct. 12 with the Chicago Marathon, airing live on NBC Chicago and nbcchicago.com.
The field features the second- and fourth-fastest American marathoners in history — Conner Mantz and Galen Rupp.
