Kenya’s Sharon Lokedi holds off Obiri to sets course record to wins women’s elite race at Boston Marathon 2025.
A year after settling for a runner-up finish, Sharon Lokedi is a Boston Marathon champion.
Kenyan Sharon Lokedi won the Boston Marathon in the fastest women’s time in race history, while Kenyan John Korir took the men’s race, 13 years after his older brother won it.
Lokedi, runner-up in 2024, pulled away from two-time defending champion Hellen Obiri in the last mile. She clocked an unofficial 2 hours, 17 minutes, 22 seconds, smashing the course record of 2:19:59 set by Ethiopian Buzunesh Deba in 2014.
Obiri, who crossed 19 seconds behind, was bidding to become the first woman to three-peat in Boston since Fatuma Roba of Ethiopia from 1997-99.
Lokedi found a way to take down Hellen Obiri, the two-time defending champion, setting the pace throughout the final miles to stop Obiri’s bid for a third straight title. Lokedi stretched her lead over the final mile, and Obiri’s patented kick never came, as Lokedi pulled off the upset in a course-record time of 2:17:22.
Ethiopia’s Yalemzerf Yehualaw and Amane Beriso tried to run the kick out of Obiri in pushing the pace through the middle part of the race and may have succeeded, but paid the price themselves, dropping back to finish third and fourth, respectively.
American Jess McClain finished off an amazing run, reeling in Annie Frisbie and closing out a 2:22:43 performance to finish as the top American and seventh overall.
McClain, who was unsponsored as recently as February 2024 when she came home for an unexpected fourth-place finish at the US Olympic Marathon Trials, lowered her personal best by more than three minutes.
Frisbie finished in 2:23:21. Her previous personal best was 02:26:18.
A beaming Sharon Lokedi speaks after victory in a course record
“I feel great,” Lokedi says. “I’m so excited. Yay!
“I want to say congratulations to everyone, it was a tough one out there. I’m so glad we had each other to fight all the way through. It was great being with them and fighting together. Towards the end, I said, ‘just keep fighting, just keep pushing, one more kick you can get it’. I didn’t believe it - I’m always second to [Hellen Obiri].
“At the halfway, I saw we ran 68 minutes and we just kept going. I hoped I would still have it towards the end - you can’t tell at halfway. When I crossed and saw the time, I couldn’t believe it.”
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