Vivian Cheruiyot Upsets Favourites For London Marathon Win
She let Mary Keitany and Tirunesh Dibaba go out fast, and patiently waited for them to falter.
Vivian Cheruiyot, who has done it all on the track, leapt to the top of the marathon world with a perfectly judged 2:18:31 win in the London Marathon – a victory that makes her the fourth fastest woman of all time.
“I didn’t want to make the same mistake I made last year, when I began too quick,” Cheruiyot said about her careful pacing in what was only her third marathon.
With a five-minute personal record, Cheruiyot, outsmarted and outraced two of the three women who have ever gone faster: Mary Keitany and Tirunesh Dibaba. Sunday was supposed to be all about them, and the world record they were going to scorch.
But neither their celebrity, nor the big bonuses on offer, and not even the attentive male pace-makers (led by Keitany’s regular Kenyan training partner) could save last year’s London top two from making the oldest mistake in the book – they went out too fast.
“Mary is a strong lady, and I knew I could not run at world record pace. So I waited in the second group,” Cheruiyot said. She stayed patiently obscure while Keitany and Dibaba seemed desperate from the start to keep ahead of the splits set 15 years ago by Paula Radcliffe in her 2:15:25 world record on this course.
Even on the downward slope of London’s opening kilometres, their 2:13 marathon pace did not look sensible. Cheruiyot and Brigid Kosgei, who would finish one-two, were working together with others in a small pack 29 seconds behind at 5K and one minute, 40 seconds behind at halfway. Keitany reached the half in an ambitious (to put it mildly) 1:07:17.
Every runner who has gone out too fast in a marathon knows what happened next.
Dibaba drifted drifted back from Keitany at 19 kilometres, lost 50 seconds, then rallied. But at 30 kilometres, Dibaba suddenly stopped, the tank empty, despite Keitany’s slowing pace.
Keitany’s male pacers urged, coached, and frantically waved at her, but her pace was down when Cheruiyot breezed by without a sideways glance, and it was over.
“I planned 69 minutes at halfway [she ran 68:56], and then I caught them slowly. I passed Tirunesh and then I saw Mary. I felt strong,” Cheruiyot said.
Cheruiyot ended almost dancing across the line, seeming tall and graceful for such a small 5-foot-2 woman. She won $55,000 for the victory. Keitany, fifth in 2:24:27, looked sadly soggy-legged.
Kosgei of Kenya, second in 2:20:13, and Tadelech Bekele of Ethiopia, third in 2:21:40, both ran PBs, which suggests the warm day was not a major factor for the Kenyans and Ethiopians, despite the concerns for the people’s field and British media using the phrase “searing heat” for the 21 degrees of mixed sun and clouds.
“For me the weather was perfect. I do not like racing in colder weather,” Cheruiyot said.
Cheruiyot, 34, takes her place in the top marathon ranks off a gilded track biography, including being Olympic champion (5,000 metres in 2016) and winning four world championship golds between the 5,000- and 10,000-metre distances, plus a world cross-country gold in 2011. She showed her road potential by beating Dibaba and Priscah Jeptoo in her half marathon debut at the Great North Run in 2016, and was second there to Keitany in 2017, in a fast 67:44.
Fourth in her marathon debut at London a year ago, in 2:23:50, Cheruiyot went faster (2:23:35) to win Frankfurt later in 2017, despite blustering winds. Her husband, Moses Kiplagat, is also her coach, and they have a 3-year old son.
This article originally appeared on runnersworld.com.
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