EUGENE, Ore. — One moment, Tamirat Tola was right there with the lead pack — shoulder to shoulder and shoe to shoe.
Then, he wasn’t. He left them that quickly. No catching him, either.
Tola led a 1-2 finish by Ethiopia in the men’s marathon at the world championships Sunday, opening a wide lead late in the race and cruising through the finish line.
The 30-year-old Tola finished in a championship-record time of 2 hours, 5 minutes, 36 seconds on a fast and flat course that featured plenty of scenic views to soak in. Teammate Mosinet Geremew held on for silver, finishing 68 seconds behind Tola. Bashir Abdi of Belgium captured bronze.
“I tried to prepare myself for a long time” for this, Tola said through an interpreter. “It was my dream.”
Even in dreams, rarely are wins by this convincing of a margin. Tola never glanced back after pulling away.
Well, maybe a few times. But no one was even close to catching up as the 2017 world silver medalist kept building and building on his lead. The previous championship record was 2:06:54, set by Abel Kirui of Kenya at the 2009 world championships in Berlin.
This is the sign of Tola’s domination: Geremew’s time eclipsed the championship record, too. It was another silver for Geremew, who finished runner-up at worlds in the heat of Doha in 2019.
“I’m very much happy because we own gold and silver,” Geremew said.
Again.
In 2019, Lelisa Desisa led the way for Ethiopia. On Sunday, though, the defending world champion tried to keep up but couldn’t maintain the pace. US runner and University of Oregon standout Galen Rupp was in the lead group for much of the race before dropping back and finishing 19th. The 36-year-old Rupp received loud cheers from the fans who lined the course, some of whom followed along while riding bikes.
That was one way to keep up with Tola.
The real race was for silver, with the 33-year-old Abdi pushing Geremew all the way to the finish before running out of steam. Cameron Levins of Canada was fourth and Geoffrey Kamworor of Kenya wounded up fifth. Kamworor is rounding back into form after recovering from a broken leg he suffered when he was hit by a motorcycle in 2020.
Men’s 10,000: World record holder Joshua Cheptegei of Kenya successfully defended his world title in 27:27.43. Stanley Mburu took silver after stumbling and falling to the track early in the first lap of the race.
Hammer throw: Throwers Brooke Andersen and Janee’ Kassanavoid extended America’s roll on home turf, taking gold and bronze medals at the world championships a day after the US sweep in the men’s 100 meters.
Andersen, a 26-year-old from California, won the gold medal with a throw of 259 feet, ½ inches (78.96 meters) that beat Canada’s Camryn Rogers by more than 11 feet (3.3 meters).
Kassanavoid took bronze to give the US women’s throwers three medals over the first three days of the meet.
Through 2½ days of action, the United States led the medals table with three golds and seven overall.
