Hellen Obiri wins the 2023 Boston Marathon (© Getty Images)
Five months on from the false-start to her marathon career in New York, there was to be no denying Hellen Obiri on the rollercoaster ride from Hopkinton to Boston.
The woman for all-seasons – the only woman in history to have won world titles on the track indoors and out and at cross country – got it right on her second shot at the 26.2-mile distance in the 2023 edition of the grand old marathon in Massachusetts.
Sporting the singlet and number which she has today generously donated to the dazzling, ever-expanding Museum of World Athletics (MOWA), Obiri emerged from the fastest elite women’s field in the long, distinguished history of the Boston race on 17 April to make a winning mark on World Marathon Majors scene.
In the Big Apple the previous November, the two-time world 5000m champion had bitten off more than she could chew. Under-fuelled and unable to overcome her track instinct for leading from the front, the Kenyan struggled home sixth in 2:25:49 - two minutes and 26 secongs behind her victorious compatriot Sharon Lokedi.
On the rolling Boston course, Obiri was always prominent in the lead pack but this time she kept her powder dry until a mile from home.
Lining up against 14 women who had broken 2:21, including five sub 2:18 performers, the 33-year-old still had five rivals for company at the 23 mile mark: 2022 world bronze medallist Lonah Salpeter of Israel, Ethiopian record-holder Amane Beriso and Kenya’s 2021 London Marathon champion Joyciline Jepkosgei, plus Ethiopia’s Ababel Yeshaneh and Emma Bates of the USA.
With a mile remaining, Obiri broke clear from Beriso, winning by 22 seconds in 2:21:38. “I learned from my mistake in New York, “she confessed. “I used to run from the front in track races and I thought I could do the same in the marathon.”
“That cost me a lot because in the marathon you can’t do all the work for 42km. What I learned from New York is patience – to wait for the right time to make your move.”
Just beyond the finish line in Boston, there was the additional reward of an emotional embrace with her seven-year-old daughter, Tania. “That was a good moment for me, “Obiri said. “I cannot explain what I felt.”
Successful move to Boulder
The previous November, in the wake of her disappointing debut in New York, she had taken the difficult decision to leave her husband, Tom Nyaundi, and their daughter behind in Kenya to train full-time in Boulder under the direction of Dathan Ritzenhein. It took a further three months for their visas to be approved so that the family could be reunited in Colorado.
Ninth in the 2008 Olympic marathon, Ritzenhein was a US record holder on the track at 5000m, finished third in the 2009 world half marathon championship race and won a bronze medal behind the victorious Kenenisa Bekele in the junior men’s race at the 2001 World Athletics Cross Country Championships in Ostend.
His marathon preparation clearly suited Obiri, the world 5000m champion in London in 2017 and Doha in 2019, world indoor 3000m gold medallist in Istanbul in 2012 and world cross country winner in Aarhus in 2019.
The former Kenyan Air Force officer – who also boasts Olympic 5000m silvers from 2016 and 2021, world outdoor 10,000m silver from 2022 and 1500m bronze from 2013 and world indoor silver from 2014 – proceeded to show her true pedigree at the classic road distance on her return to New York in November this year.
On that occasion, Obiri timed her kick to perfection, sprinting away from Letesenbet Gidey and defending champion Lokedi in the final 400m. She crossed the finish line in Central Park six seconds clear of Gidey in 2:27:23, with Lokedi a further four seconds back in third place.
Victory was doubly sweet for the Kenyan with the distinctive long-levering arm action. In the 10,000m final at the 2022 World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Obiri finished a tantalising 0.08 behind the victorious Gidey, the Ethiopian who holds the world records for 10,000m on the track and the half-marathon on the roads.
“My debut here last year was terrible,” Obiri said. “I didn’t want to come back. But sometimes you learn from your mistakes. I made a lot of mistakes last year.”
One of those mistakes, she confessed, had been running out of fuel – accustomed, as she was at the time, to doing 20-mile training runs back home in Kenya without any water, gels or electrolytes. “Now I take four sips every 5km,” she said.
In the footsteps of Kristiansen
It was the first time in 34 years that the Boston-New York marathon women’s double had been achieved in the same calendar year.
Back in 1989 Ingrid Kristiansen was a class apart in both races, winning by four minutes and 31 seconds in Boston and 2:24 in New York.
Like Obiri, the great Norwegian won world outdoor gold on the track, at 10,000m in Rome in 1987, and the world cross country title, in Auckland in 1988. She was also, of course, a serial world record breaker, setting global marks at 3000m, 5000m, 10,000m and the marathon.
At the Olympic Games, however, Kristiansen never managed to make the podium. She finished fourth in the marathon in Los Angeles in 1984, behind Joan Benoit, Grete Waitz and Rosa Mota, and failed to finish the 10,000m in Seoul in 1988 because of a fractured foot-bone.
Obiri has gained two silver medals from three Olympic campaigns, in which she has contested every track distance from 1500m up to 10,000m.
Eighth in the 1500m final in London in 2012, she finished runner-up to fellow Kenyan Vivian Cheruiyot over 5000m in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and to Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands in Tokyo in 2021. She also placed fourth in the 10,000m in the Japanese capital.
As Obiri looks to the future, apart from improving her standing on the world all-time list from a rather modest joint 476th place, Olympic gold on the roads of Paris in 2024 is a natural target.
“I’ve won gold medals in World Championships, so I’m looking for Olympic gold,” said the reigning marathon queen of New York and Boston. “It’s the only medal missing in my career.”
Simon Turnbull for World Athletics Heritage
