The women's marathon at the 2015 World Championships in Athletics was held at the Beijing National Stadium on 30 August.Start list The winning margin was one second which as of 2024 is the only time the women's marathon has been won by less than three seconds at these championships.
Summary Under overcast skies the race quickly formed two large packs of about 20 runners. For the next 25K, the lead pack remained about the same size with some runners bridging the gap in time for others to fall off the pace. Between 25K and 30K, the pack dropped to a dozen runners. Just after 31K, defending champion Edna Kiplagat accelerated. In the next 4K, the lead pack cut in half, the remaining athletes were three Kenyans, two Ethiopians and Eunice Kirwa wearing a Bahrain uniform, from Kenya. London Marathon champion Tigist Tufa was the first to fall back, then Kiplagat began to lose contact. But the four person pack remained tougher into the stadium. Four athletes to sprint it out on the track for three medals after running 26 miles. Mare Dibaba (no relation to the other famous Dibaba sisters) led the group toward the tunnel. As they started to speed up, Jemima Sumgong did not have another gear. Kirwa was perfectly positioned to strike but instead Helah Kiprop launched the attack from the back after looking like she was ready to drop off, long striding behind the diminutive Dibaba. 60 metres before the finish they were almost even, but Dibaba would not give that last few inches. Then Dibaba sped away to cross the line with almost 7 metres gap. The times had a second between first and second, a four-second gap amongst the medalists and a 7-second gap back to fourth place. On every count, the closest Marathon finish in World Championship history.
It was four Kenyan born athletes in places 2–5, Ethiopia and Japan placed three each in the top 14 places.
Records Prior to the competition, the records were as follows:
World record2:15:25London, United Kingdom13 April 2003Championship record2:20:57Helsinki, Finland14 August 2005World leading2:19.52Xiamen, China3 January 2015African record2:18:37London, United Kingdom22 April 2012Asian record2:19:12Berlin, Germany25 September 2005NACAC record2:19:36London, United Kingdom23 April 2006South American record2:26:40Berlin, Germany28 September 2014European record2:15:25London, United Kingdom13 April 2003Oceanian record2:22:36Chicago, United States22 October 2006
Qualification standards Time 2:44:00
Schedule Date Time Round30 August 2015 07:30 Final
Results The race was started at 07:30.Final results
KEY:NRNational recordPBPersonal bestSBSeasonal best
Rank Name Nationality Time Notes Mare Dibaba 2:27:35 Helah Kiprop 2:27:36 Eunice Kirwa 2:27:39 Jemima Sumgong 2:27:42 Edna Kiplagat 2:28:18 Tigist Tufa 2:29:12 Mai Ito 2:29:48 Tirfi Tsegaye 2:30:54 Kim Hye-song 2:30:59 10 Serena Burla 2:31:06 11 Rasa Drazdauskaitė 2:31:23 12 Filomena Costa 2:31:40 13 Sairi Maeda 2:31:46 14 Risa Shigetomo 2:32:37 15 Alina Prokopeva 2:32:44 16 Ding Changqin 2:33:04 17 Alessandra Aguilar 2:33:42 18 O. P. Jaisha 2:34:43 19 Sudha Singh 2:35:35 20 Visiline Jepkesho 2:36:17 21 Sinead Diver 2:36:38 22 Katarína Berešová 2:37:24 23 Sarah Klein 2:37:58 24 Esther Erb 2:38:15 25 Lishan Dula 2:38:18 26 Clara Canchanya 2:39:24 27 Liina Luik 2:39:42 28 Wang Xueqin 2:41:42 29 Anne-Mari Hyryläinen 2:41:59 30 Kim Seongeun 2:42:14 31 Kateryna Karmanenko 2:43:12 32 Yiu Kit Ching 2:43:28 33 Annelie Johansson 2:43:42 34 Nebiat Habtemariam 2:44:42 35 Munkhzaya Bayartsogt 2:45:01 36 Iuliia Andreeva 2:45:04 37 He Yinli 2:45:05 38 Lily Luik 2:45:22 39 Anita Kažemāka 2:45:54 40 Gulzhanat Zhanatbek 2:45:54 41 Yeum Go-eun 2:46:46 42 Aster Tesfaye 2:46:54 43 Sultan Haydar 2:47:11 44 Charlotte Karlsson 2:47:40 45 Hsu Yu-fang 2:48:01 46 Julia Degan 2:49:26 47 Roselaine Benites 2:49:28 48 Louise Wiker 2:49:57 49 Niluka Geethani Rajasekara 2:50:40 50 Mayada Al-Sayad 2:53:39 51 Dailín Belmonte 2:56:18 52 Hsieh Chien-ho 2:58:25 Souad Aït Salem Hortensia Arzapalo Michele Cristina das Chagas Barkahoum Drici Sitora Hamidova Kim Hye-gyong Soumiya Labani Heather Lieberg Luvsanlkhündegiin Otgonbayar Tanith Maxwell Beata Naigambo Irina Smolnikova Paula Todoran Lalita Babar Olena Popova
References