2025 Tokyo Marathon Women’s Preview

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to opening day.

The World Marathon Majors may have expanded to seven races (soon to be nine), but one thing hasn’t changed: the year’s marathon season will dawn in the land of the rising sun. And with four of the ten fastest athletes in history, the 2025 Tokyo Marathon is setting the tone for another record-breaking year on the roads.

Sutume Kebede

Sutume Kebede’s 2:15:55 win in the Japanese capital last year saw her jump to eighth on the marathon all-time list, and while some poor 2023 results kept her off the plane to Paris, the Ethiopian proved she wasn’t a one-hit wonder when she finished runner-up to Ruth Chepng’etich’s world record run in Chicago in October.

Kebede will return to the site of both her first World Marathon Major medal (2020) and her first World Marathon Major win (2024) on March 2nd in the hopes of successfully defending her title. However, the Ethiopian is not the fastest, most successful, or most experienced runner in the field; all those accolades belong to Brigid Kosgei.

Sutume Kebede wins the 2024 Tokyo Marathon

Brigid Kosgei

Once upon a time, Kosgei was the best marathon runner on the planet. She won her first World Marathon Major in Chicago in 2018 before winning her second in London in early 2019. That pattern repeated itself – with a world record in Chicago thrown in for good measure – and Kosgei suddenly found herself standing on the Olympic start line holding the world record and the longest-ever streak of consecutive World Marathon Major wins by a woman. That streak would come to an end two hours later when she finished second behind Olympic champion Peres Jepchirchir, but Kosgei returned to Japan the following year to win the 2022 edition of the Tokyo Marathon by almost two minutes.

So you may be surprised to learn that, three years on, Kosgei will come back to that same course looking to kick off her redemption arc. The Kenyan hasn’t finished on a World Marathon Major podium since that race in 2022 and has pulled out of half of the marathons she has entered in the last few years. Her most recent withdrawal came before the Paris Olympics after she sustained an unspecified injury and was forced to give up her spot to eventual fourth-place finisher Sharon Lokedi. Assuming she is healthy, there is no reason why the 31-year-old can’t climb back onto the top step of podiums around the world, but whether the streets that witnessed her most recent triumph will also play host to her return to form remains to be seen.

Brigid Kosgei successfully defends her title at the 2022 Tokyo Marathon

Rosemary Wanjiru

Sandwiched between Kosgei’s 2022 victory and Kebede’s win last year is Rosemary Wanjiru, who won this race in 2023 and who will also be returning to the Japanese capital next Sunday. Although born in Kenya, Wanjiru moved to Japan as a teenager and spent many of her schooling and working years in the country before becoming a professional runner. She has only run four marathons – two of them being in the country she considers her second home – but all have been impressive. She clocked the second-fastest debut in history at the 2022 Berlin Marathon, won the 2023 Tokyo Marathon, and finished sixth at the World Championships later that year before returning to Tokyo in 2024 to finish runner-up. She wasn’t selected for the Olympics and only raced once more in 2024 (a disappointing third-place finish at a half-marathon in Thailand), so it’s unclear what kind of shape she is in: however, if all her career marathons to date are anything to go by, then Wanjiru will return to Japan looking to pick up a medal for the third year in a row.

Rosemary Wanjiru wins the 2023 Tokyo Marathon

Tigist Ketema

Being a former winner isn’t a prerequisite to making it into this preview, and there are two women who pose a real threat to those looking to add another Tokyo Marathon title to their resume.

The first is Ethiopian phenom Tigist Ketema, who made quite an unusual career move last year. A middle-distance specialist her entire life, Ketema shocked the distance running world when she stormed to a two-minute victory at the 2024 Dubai Marathon to clock the fastest marathon debut in history. Perhaps aware that even a 2:16:07 on debut wouldn’t be good enough for the Ethiopian Athletics Federation, Ketema lined up in London three months later in an attempt to bolster her resume. While the quick turnaround proved too much for the Ethiopian talent (who finished seventh in 2:23:21 and failed to make the team headed to Paris), she rebounded swiftly to win the Berlin Marathon by more than two minutes and become the only woman in history to break 2:17 more than once in the same year.

The 26-year-old will now head to Tokyo for her fourth marathon, and if it goes anything like her first three, expect her to be a genuine contender for the win.

Tigist Ketema wins the 2024 Berlin Marathon

Gotytom Gebreslase

Gebreslase’s marathon career got off to a bit of a faltering start. After she failed to finish her debut race in Osaka in 2018, the Ethiopian took three years to find the confidence to try again; but find her confidence she did. Gebreslase won the 2021 Berlin Marathon, broke 2:20 for the first time in her career to finish third at the 2022 Tokyo Marathon, and won the World Championships in yet another personal best just four months later. Another World Marathon Major podium in New York capped off a remarkable year, and when she placed second at the 2023 World Championships it seemed as though the world might have gained its newest marathon star.

Unfortunately for Gebreslase, that was not to be the case. She hasn’t run a World Marathon Major since, and it’s coming up on three years since she last dipped under 2:20 (in that time, a woman has broken 2:10). A fifth-place finish at a half-marathon in China last month has hardly put her 2025 season on the trajectory she would have liked, but next Sunday will offer her the perfect opportunity to correct the course and prove that she’s more than a championship racer. Like Kosgei, Gebreslase will toe the Tokyo Marathon start line in hopes of finding her form of old, and in the interest of keeping the race as exciting as possible, I hope that’s just what she does.

Gotytom Gebreslase wins the 2022 World Athletics Championships marathon

To find out how you can watch the 2025 Tokyo Marathon, click here.

To read my preview for the men’s race, click here.