Boston Marathon 2023 LIVE: Updates and result as Eliud Kipchoge beaten after bombing remembered 10 years on
Evans Chebet stunned Kipchoge to win the men’s elite race on the 10th anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing
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The great Eliud Kipchoge was shockingly beaten at the 127th running of the Boston Marathon as defending champion Evans Chebet brilliantly retained his men’s elite title.
The world’s oldest annual marathon event once again delivered high drama as world record holder Kipchoge was stunningly dropped around the 20-mile mark and Chebet then opened up a lead over the chasing pack on the iconic Heartbreak Hill.
The Kenyan held off the challenge of Gabriel Geay and his training partner Benson Kipruto to finish with a time of 2:05:54 and become the first man since 2008 to retain the Boston Marathon elite men’s title.
This year’s edition held special significance as it is the 10th anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing, a domestic terrorist attack in 2013 that saw three people killed and hundreds injured. For a marathon that is fittingly held on Patriots’ Day in the United States, the bombing was remembered and those killed were commemorated with a military march before the racing began.
Follow all the reaction from the event with our blog below:
When is the Boston Marathon?
The Boston Marathon will be held on Monday 17 April, which is Patriots’ Day in the United States.
The rough start timings for the event are as follows:
- Men’s Wheelchair - 9.02 am ET (2.02pm BST)
- Women’s Wheelchair - 9.05 am ET (2.05pm BST)
- Handcycles & Duos - 9.30 am ET (2.30pm BST)
- Professional Men - 9.37 am ET (2.37pm BST)
- Professional Women - 9.45 am ET (2.45pm BST)
- Para Athletics Divisions - 9.50 am ET (2.50pm BST)
- Rolling Start Begins - 10.00 am ET (3pm BST)
- Rolling Start Ends - 12.30 am ET (5.30pm BST)
Boston Marathon 2023
Monday’s race will see the debut of a new division for non-binary athletes.
The Boston Athletic Association added the category when registration opened last fall. In order to enter, non-binary athletes needed to complete a marathon as a non-binary participant during the qualifying window.
Twenty-seven runners have signed up, the BAA said. Five of the six major marathons include a non-binary category, with Tokyo the exception.
Boston Marathon 2023
The race will include 264 members of the One Fund community — survivors of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing attack, along with friends and family of the victims and those raising money for related causes.
The 2013 race was interrupted when two backpack bombs exploded on Boylston Street, steps from the finish line.
Three people were killed and nearly 300 injured, with 17 people losing limbs to the pressure-cooker bombs that were packed with nails and ball bearings.
The city marked 10 years since the bombing on Saturday, the calendar anniversary.
Boston Marathon poses new challenge for Kipchoge: slow down
World record-holder Eliud Kipchoge has the speed to outclass the rest of the field when he makes his Boston Marathon debut on Monday.
To win, he may have to slow things down.
The two-time Olympic gold medalist and 12-time major marathon champion knows that the 26.2-mile route from Hopkinton to Boston’s Back Bay isn’t like those flat and friendly courses where he established himself as perhaps the greatest distance runner of all time.
No matter, he said: Breaking the tape is what’s important.
Regardless of how long it takes.
Boston Marathon poses new challenge for Kipchoge: slow down
World record-holder Eliud Kipchoge has the speed to outclass the rest of the field when he makes his Boston Marathon debut
Boston Marathon 2023
There’s a little over two and a half hours left to go before the elite men’s race begins around 2.37pm. Before that both wheelchair races will have started and the amatuer runners will be gearing up for their runs to start.
To help those who have never run the course before, three blue lines are painted on the street and runners can follow them all the way to the finish line.
The Fairmont Copley scream tunnel
This is pretty cool.
Every year the athletes competing in the Boston Marathon stay at the Fairmont Copley Plaza. On the morning of the race hotel and marathon staff fill the lobby and create their own “scream tunnel” to send the professional runners off to the start line.
Claps and cheers for such as stars like Eliud Kipchoge and Amane Beriso can be heard as the runners make their way to the buses which will then take then to the race start.
It’s a small gesture but will probably mean quite a lot to the people involved.
Boston Marathon 2023
Earlier this morning, US military personnel gathered at the start line for the Boston Marathon ahead of their march around the course.
They did this to commemorate the lives lost during the Boston Marathon bombing 10 years ago.
The real consequence of World Athletics’ transgender ban will go untold
A few hours after World Athletics announced it had banned transgender women from elite female events, someone tagged Parkrun UK in a tweet, and asked: “Will you follow @WorldAthletics lead and ban transgender women from women’s athletics at all levels?”
It was only one post by one person with a hundred-odd followers, but the tweet calling for transgender women to be barred from an organised run was seen by nearly 20,000 people in 24 hours.
In purely sporting terms, the transgender debate is about long-standing dividing lines built on the biological differences between men and women, which are being tested by the reality that not everyone fits neatly into those boxes. It is about biology and identity, about sex and gender, about finding an impossible balance between the principle of fairness and the right of inclusion.
But when a major sporting body makes a decision on transgender exclusion like this one, there will inevitably be unintended consequences at every level. The detailed 2021 Trans Lives Survey found 77 per cent of trans women who participate in sport have experienced transphobia, and 14 per cent experience abuse or discrimination “every time” they play. As Australian trans-runner Ricki Coughlan warned this week, World Athletics’ decision could now embolden “forces of hate” against the community, because the notion of exclusion will permeate far deeper than elite sport.
The real consequence of World Athletics’ transgender ban will go untold
Elite athletics won’t feel any sweeping change as a result of a new ruling which prioritises competitive fairness over inclusion, but life for transgender people who participate in sport might get a little harder
Kipchoge unsure what to expect from Boston Marathon
The Boston Marathon with it’s plethora of hills is unlike most other long distance races such as Berlin or London which are incredible flat and allow for world record times.
The Men’s current world record holder Eliud Kipchoge has never raced in Boston but at 38-years-old will make his debut later today.
“I don’t know what will happen at 10, 15, 25 kilometers,” he said during an interview with The New York Times, “It’s a huge experience and a different experience than many other marathons. That’s what makes me nervous.
“I think Boston is like the Olympics, it’s a new environment to me. Well-selected people. It’s like a championship race.”
Boston Marathon 2023 in numbers
30,239 participants are entered in Monday’s Race, 17,272 are men, 12,940 are women with 27 non-binary entrants.
Residents of 106 Countries and All 50 U.S. States will take part with 4,704 runners from Massachusetts.
There are also 12 former Boston Marathon champions among the field.
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