2025 Tokyo Marathon: Is the Age of Ethiopian Marathon Dominance Upon Us?

One down, six to go.

The Tokyo Marathon kicked off the 2025 World Marathon Majors calendar in style this morning, with 38,000 athletes streaming through the Japanese capital in cool conditions and under clear skies.

The first big city marathon of 2025 also gave some more credence to a trend that has been emerging over the last few years. With Eliud Kipchoge at the helm, Kenya has enjoyed a rather long stint as the most dominant marathon-running nation on the planet. But, as the GOAT’s grip on the throne has begun to weaken, so too has his nation’s presence at the front of World Marathon Majors. Kenya has, and will seemingly always be, a force to be reckoned with, but the balance of power is definitely shifting in the way of their northern neighbours. The age of Ethiopian marathon dominance is here.

Elite Women

Sutume Kebede has defended her Tokyo Marathon title in the most emphatic way.

The Ethiopian led from gun to tape, ripping apart the field in the opening stages of the race and, at one point, putting more than two and a half minutes between herself and her next closest competitor. Kebede’s aggressive tactics caught up to her late in the race, but luckily for her, none of her rivals did. While the margin to second place appeared to shrink with every passing mile, the seemingly insurmountable gap Kebede had created by halfway proved to be just that, and she claimed her second consecutive win in the Japanese capital.

Kenya’s Winfridah Moraa Moseti closed hard and crossed the line 25 seconds in arrears of Kebede to pick up her maiden World Marathon Majors medal, and Ethiopia’s Hawi Feysa stopped the clock 4 seconds later to accomplish the same feat.

Last year, Kebede used her win in Tokyo to set the tone for her most successful year on record. An equally impressive victory on the same streets 12 months later suggests her 2025 season may well shape up in a similar fashion.

Sutume Kebede has successfully defended her Tokyo Marathon title

Elite Men

The only noteworthy storyline to come out of the first half of this race was Joshua Cheptegei’s absence from the front group. When a lead pack of eight men crossed the halfway mark, the 5000m and 10,000m world record holder and double Olympic Champion was sitting in the chase group in 25th place, some 52 seconds off the pace. This was a stark difference from his debut in 2023, which saw the Ugandan push beyond his limits to ensure he went through halfway with the leaders – a move that ultimately relegated him to an eight-minute positive split and a 37th-place finish.

That was not to be the case today. Cheptegei ran a far more measured race this morning and was rewarded with a 9th-place finish, a three-minute personal best, and a whole lot of confidence as he picked his way through a sea of overambitious athletes during the closing stages.

While a top-ten finish at a World Marathon Major and a sub-2:06 clocking are certainly impressive accomplishments, it’s hard not to feel a little underwhelmed by Cheptegei’s performance. His fellow track star, Selemon Barega, made his marathon debut last weekend in Seville: Barega won the event and ran faster than Cheptegei did today, despite running most of the race solo and keeping his sights set on a track season. This was Cheptegei’s first marathon since retiring from the track, so I don’t want to be too quick to judge – but while it may have been a big step up from his debut in 2023, the Ugandan appears to be multiple big steps away from the front of these races.

Joshua Cheptegei has finished 9th at the 2025 Tokyo Marathon

Speaking of the front of the race, Vincent Kipkemboi Ngetich thought that would be the perfect place to be as the leading pack approached 30km. A sudden injection of pace splintered the group, and for a moment, it looked as though the first big move of the race could also be the last. Alas, as the final pacemaker stepped off the course, the Ethiopian pair of Tadese Takele and Deresa Geleta rallied and found their way back onto the heels of Ngetich. Defending champion Benson Kipruto, former back-to-back Tokyo Marathon Champion Birhanu Legese, and World Championship finalist Titus Kipruto had no such luck, drifting out of sight as the eventual podium pressed on.

10km later, and Ngetich still had not managed to shake his Ethiopian competitors. Even worse for the Kenyan, his pace had begun to slip. A handful of kilometres outside three minutes only served to make Geleta and Takele impatient, and the latter eventually decided that, with less than five kilometres left, it was time to push ahead.

Takele dropped a 2:51 39th kilometre to string out the trio and a 2:53 40th kilometre to seal their fate. The 22-year-old went on to stop the clock in 2:03:23 to win his first World Marathon Major, improve his lifetime best by one second, and clock the third-fastest winning time ever recorded on the Tokyo Marathon course. Geleta trailed his countryman to the line to win his first World Marathon Major medal, and an exhausted Ngetich rounded out the podium.

While the dominant trend to come from recent global marathons has been Ethiopia’s ever-growing presence on the top step of the podium, perhaps an equally significant pattern has been emerging: younger medallists. Many up-and-coming East Africans are eschewing the track in favour of the roads simply because the exceptionally deep talent pool in these countries makes qualifying for a national track team almost impossible. On the other hand, anyone can sign up to run a big city marathon, and the financial rewards if you can make it onto the podium are much greater than winning even the biggest of track meets. The combined age of the three medallists in today’s race is 76, the third lowest total in the past decade of World Marathon Majors (behind a combined podium age of 72 in Tokyo in 2023 and 75 in New York in 2018). What this means for the distance running world isn’t clear yet, but when young athletes start focusing their energy and passion on our sport’s marquee event, it’s hard to imagine that being a bad thing.

A 22-year-old Tadese Takele celebrates winning the 2025 Tokyo Marathon

To view the full list of results from the 2025 Tokyo Marathon, click here.