British distance runner takes girls’s race in powerful situations in 2:30:43, Wealthy Sands experiences, as Tsegay Weldlibanos takes the lads’s victory.
Tsegay Weldlibanos made a shocking comeback within the closing miles to win the JAL Honolulu Marathon on a moist and intensely humid Sunday morning (Dec 14) whereas Calli Hauger-Thackery pulled away late to take the ladies’s title.
The 53rd working of the race – which featured 23,131 starters within the marathon and 8903 within the companion Begin to Park 10km – egan at 5am native time with gentle rain and excessive humidity. Predicted downpours held off, though the athletes nonetheless needed to navigate occasional drizzle and deep puddles alongside parts of the course.
Pacemaker John Raneri towed the lads’s subject via 5km in 15:36 and 10km in 31:22, with a good pack that included Weldlibanos, who completed ninth on the TCS New York Metropolis Marathon simply six weeks in the past, and his coaching companions, defending champion Yemane Haileselassie, Amanuel Mesel and Tesfu Tewelde (all 4 are natives of Eritrea and are at present residing in america beneath political asylum), plus Kenyan Patrick Ketter Kiplagat. Raneri dropped again at that time however continued working and would ultimately tempo the elite girls.
Mesel and Tewelde quickly fell off the lead group, although Tewelde by no means fully misplaced contact. The 4 different athletes took turns within the entrance and handed midway collectively in 66:30. Tewelde was at one level 25 seconds again however patiently labored his manner again and rejoined the pack by 25km.
Within the 18th mile Haileselassie made a decisive transfer that rapidly broke open the race. Solely Weldlibanos, who had the quickest private finest within the subject after working 2:07:35 to win the 2024 California Worldwide Marathon, may match the tempo of sub-5:00 miles over the hilly course, however he was unable to reply when Haileselassie surged once more within the twenty first mile.
From there it appeared that Haileselassie, an Olympic finalist within the steeplechase in 2016 and 2021, may be cruising to a different win. Cheered on by the mass participation runners who had been heading out on the course in the other way, he put a spot of 21 seconds on Weldlibanos at 35km.
Alas, the race was not over. By 40km the tenacious Weldlibanos had minimize the deficit to simply 4 seconds, and about 400m later he took the lead. “Tsegay has a variety of expertise, and I do know from coaching that he’s very, very match,” stated James McKirdy, who coaches each athletes in Flagstaff, Arizona. “I had a variety of confidence that he had the energy in his respiration and measurement of effort and if he nonetheless had the legs with a mile and a half to go he may nonetheless get it. I may inform that Yemane was struggling much more than Tsegay.”
Weldlibanos closed exhausting over the ultimate mile and ran solo to the end line in Kapiolani Park in Waikiki, clocking 2:13:38. “At 40km my physique was feeling good. I simply needed to push it,” stated the winner, who dietary supplements his racing revenue with a part-time job as a ride-share driver. “I recovered nicely from New York and after I caught Yemane I used to be feeling good.”
Haileselassie (2:14:29) took second, adopted by Kiplagat (2:14:56), Tewelde (2:15:40) and Mesel (2:20:06).
Within the girls’s race, 5 girls ran collectively via 5km (18:12), 10km (35:46) and midway (76:24): Hauger-Thackery of Nice Britain, two-time defending champion Cynthia Limo of Kenya, Eunice Chumba of Bahrain (who completed within the high 10 on the previous two Olympic Video games), Sintayehu Tilahun of Ethiopia and Vibian Chepkurui of Kenya. Because the second half started, Raneri, the lads’s rabbit, was now pacing this group.
Tilahun was the primary to lose contact (she would ultimately drop out) and by 30km Chepkurui had fallen behind. On the elite fluid station close to 30km, Hauger-Thackery’s bottle had been positioned on the fallacious desk, inflicting a second of confusion. She needed to double again to seize her bottle, briefly dropping floor on the pack.
“It was only a mishap, it occurs all over the place,” she stated. “However to be trustworthy I feel it was a blessing in disguise as a result of I used to be beginning to transfer to the entrance and it was a bit early for that, so it made me chill. I simply reeled them again in and advised myself to not panic.”
Shortly earlier than the two-hour mark, Chumba drifted again and it was all the way down to a two-woman race between Hauger-Thackery and Limo. “It was so empowering. Cynthia is an unbelievable racer. I knew we had been each hurting, however [I told myself] I’ve simply received to faux it,” Hauger-Thackery stated with amusing.
Simply earlier than 23 miles she began to open a spot, slowly extending her margin over the ultimate miles. “I used to be hurting, however I advised myself, ‘You are able to do something for 3 miles,’” she stated.
She crossed the end line in 2:30:43 and moments later dropped to her knees and threw up, admitting that was as a lot an emotional response as a bodily one.
Calli Hauger-Thackery has received the JAL Honolulu Marathon in 2:30:43 in powerful situations which included torrential rain.
“It was enjoyable … and totally different,” she says. “A tremendous race on the finish of a rollercoaster yr.”
🎙️ @d9monti pic.twitter.com/10LXM0K8Co
— AW (@AthleticsWeekly) December 14, 2025
“I put so much on myself this yr,” stated Hauger-Thackery, who has a private finest of two:21:24 from the 2024 Berlin Marathon. “So many A-goal races, like Boston Marathon [where she finished 6th], world champs at 10,000m [11th place]. Going backwards and forwards between observe and street working, after which DNF-ing in Chicago was gut-wrenching.”
She was grateful for the chance to shut out 2025 with this redemption run. “My solely intention for right this moment was to fall again in love with the marathon, end this race … and get my confidence again,” she admitted. “To do this and win it, I can end the yr glad now.”
Limo was the runner-up in 2:31:33, not far off her successful time from final yr (2:31:14). Chumba (2:35:37), Chepkurui (2:40:49) and Japan’s Eri Suzuki (2:50:59) rounded out the highest 5.
The winners every earned $25,000 in prize mone plus a singular strong gold winner’s medal crafted by Japanese goldsmiths SGC, a race associate.
Within the companion Begin to Park 10km Edwin Kurgat of Kenya (29:31) and Annika Reiss (34:19) had been the winners (the course distance just isn’t licensed). “The nice and cozy-up was a downpour, so we received drenched, instantly,” Reiss advised Race Outcomes Weekly. “However , we received our bathe in earlier than the race after which we received to race and it was excellent situations throughout the race.”
Newly topped World Marathon Majors collection champion Susannah Scaroni received the ladies’s wheelchair division in a course file 1:48:37. It was her first time ever in Hawaii.
“I liked the vitality,” stated Scaroni. “I liked that you possibly can inform that you simply had been by the ocean and plenty of glad crowds, although they had been getting soaked.”
Yukina Ota of Japan efficiently defended his title within the males’s wheelchair division, clocking a course file 1:28:25.
Race Outcomes Weekly is sponsored by RunCzech, organizers of the Prague Marathon and a collection of iconic working occasions, together with the Prague Half Marathon, a part of the SuperHalfs, and Italy’s quickest half marathon, the Napoli Metropolis Half Marathon. Be taught extra at runczech.com.
