Berlin Marathon: Ethiopia’s Milkesa Mengesha & Tigist Ketema win men’s and women’s races

Ethiopia dominated Sunday’s Berlin marathon, with winners in both the men’s and women’s races and runners in five of the six podium places.

Milkesa Mengesha, 24, beat Kenya’s Cybrian Kotut by just five seconds in the men’s event, pulling clear in the final stretch to finish in two hours, three minutes 17 seconds.

Fellow Ethiopian Haymanot Alew was third.

Tigist Ketema, 26, claimed victory in the women’s event in a time of two hours 16 minutes 42 seconds, more than two minutes ahead of compatriots Mestawot Fikir and Bosena Mulatie.

Ethiopia’s Tigist Assefa broke the women’s world record with a time of 2:11:53 in last year’s race, but while Ketema was five minutes slower than that, her winning time was still the third fastest in the event.

Great Britain’s Calli Hauger-Thackery, 31, was the first European home in seventh place, finishing less than five minutes behind Ketema in 2:21:24 – the sixth-fastest marathon run of all time by a British woman, external.

David Weir, 45, was second in the men’s wheelchair race, finishing one minute 47 seconds behind Switzerland’s Olympic champion Marcel Hug, who won in a time of 1:27:18.

It was the 50th running of the prestigious event but a number of big names were missing, with the races coming just over a month after the end of the Paris Olympics.

Kenya’s five-time winner Eliud Kipchoge, who won the 2022 men’s race in a then world record time of 2:01:09, was among those not racing.