The 2023 Tokyo Marathon champion Rosemary Wanjiru will be making another grand return to the streets of Tokyo, Japan for another scintillating marathon tomorrow full of confidence she claim comes from adequate training at her base in Iten.
Wanjiru, who placed second last year and is the 2022 Berlin Marathon runner-up returns to a country where her athletics career was birthed.
As she sets out to reclaim her 2023 title, Wanjiru said yesterday that she only hoped to run a good race in the first World Marathon Major of 2025.
“When I start the race on Sunday, my prayer will be one; to run a good race and finish strong,” Wanjiru who landed in Tokyo earlier in the week said.
The Iten-based long distance star said she draws her confidence for the Sunday race from months of training.
“I am feeling great and ready for the race. My preparations were pretty good and that give me the confidence to do my best in this year’s race,” added Wanjiru.
Last year, Ethiopian Sutume Asefa Kebede took the women’s crown while Benson Kipruto cruised to a stunning victory in the men’s marathon.
Wanjiru says she was also well prepared to compete once again with the defending champion in the 42km race that observers say will be catfight.
“I got a strong support from my coaches, family and management and I thank everyone for making the preparations possible,” the 2015 African Games 5000m silver medalist said.
With her second place in the 2024 Tokyo Marathon, Wanjiru defeated big names among them Olympic champion Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands, who finished fourth in the contest.
At the 2024 edition, the podium seemed decided at 30km, a mark where Wanjiru, Kebede and Amane Beriso crossed in 1:36:43.
Beriso was later dropped, and Kebede managed to shake off Wanjiru and went for the victory over the closing kilometers.
While a teenager, Wanjiru relocated to Japan where her athletics career was nurtured before she returned to Kenya to make waves.
“Japan is my second home and competing at the Tokyo Marathon makes me feel great. I was here that my athletics journey started and it makes feel good whenever I return,” Wanjiru a 2:16:14 career best runner from Tokyo last year added.
Wanjiru, 30, will be up against defending champion Sutume Kebede of Ethiopia who set a Japanese all-comers’ record of 2:15:55 when winning in Tokyo last year. Ethiopia’s Tigist Ketema, who ran 2:16:07 on her debut in Dubai just over a year ago, is another leading contender, along with her compatriots Hawi Feysa, who won in Frankfurt in October in 2:17:25, 2022 world champion Gotytom Gebreslase and 2021 London Marathon runner-up Degitu Azimeraw. Japan’s Ai Hosoda and Yuka Ando will join them on the start line.
The women’s elite field features a total of nine sub-2:20 runners, including four who have dipped under 2:18.
Last year, despite emerging second in Tokyo and rising to the sixth place in the world all-time list, Wanjiru could not make it to Paris Olympics. She was named in the initial Olympics squad but could not make the final list when the team was whittled down.
In the men’s race, defending champion Benson Kipruto, who set a Japanese all-comers’ record when winning in Tokyo last year in 2:02:16, will be joined in the men’s race by Uganda’s Joshua Cheptegei, the world 5000m and 10,000m record-holder who returns to the roads to contest his second marathon after his 2:08:59 debut in Valencia in 2023.
After winning in Tokyo, Kipruto became an Olympic bronze medalist as he ran 2:07:00 to finish third in Paris. Now he will aim to become the first man to win back-to-back Tokyo Marathon titles since Birhanu Legese in 2019 and 2020. Kipruto also won the Boston Marathon in 2021 and the Chicago Marathon in 2022, and was runner-up in Chicago in 2023.
But Legese is also in action in Tokyo, and the 30-year-old has the chance to become the first three-time winner of the elite men’s race. The Ethiopian remains the ninth-fastest marathon runner in history with the PB of 2:02:48 he set in Berlin in 2019.
The field features six sub-2:04 athletes, with Kipruto and Legese joined by Ethiopia’s Deresa Geleta, the Olympic fifth-place finisher and Valencia Marathon runner-up who has a best of 2:02:38, plus 2023 Berlin Marathon third-place finisher Tadese Takele, this year’s Xiamen Marathon winner Dawit Wolde and Kenya’s Vincent Kipkemoi Ngetich, who was third in Tokyo last year.
The line-up also includes Ethiopia’s world bronze medalist Leul Gebresilase, Uganda’s Stephen Kissa and Japan’s Yohei Ikeda and Akira Akasaki
