The 2025 Berlin Marathon delivered one of the most dramatic displays of resilience in distance running history on Sunday, as Ethiopian star Tigst Assefa fought through a late injury to secure a dominant win, only to narrowly miss breaking the women’s marathon world record.
Assefa, a 29-year-old Olympic silver medalist from the 2024 Paris Games and 2026 London Marathon champion, got off to a blistering start in the race. By the 15-kilometer mark, she had opened up a full-minute gap over the rest of the elite women’s field, and she maintained a pace faster than the existing world record through the 35-kilometer mark. Long known as one of the sport’s strongest closers, all signs pointed to Assefa shattering the current world benchmark set by Kenya’s Ruth Chepngetich at the 2024 Chicago Marathon.
That world record of 2:09:56 remains intact, however, after a sudden tendon injury forced Assefa to slow dramatically in the race’s final miles. Visibly hobbling in discomfort, the Ethiopian struggled through the last kilometers to the finish line, crossing it with an official time of 2 hours 11 minutes and 4 seconds. Despite the late fade, the result still marked the third-fastest women’s marathon time ever recorded. It also beat Assefa’s own 2023 Berlin course record of 2:11:53 — her previous personal best — and marked a significant improvement on her 2:15:41 win at the London Marathon earlier this year.
Speaking after the race, Berlin Marathon event director Mark Milde expressed a mix of awe and sympathy for Assefa’s performance. “We have to bow our heads to this performance. She was on a world record course for most of the race but then something happened to her tendon,” Milde told reporters. “To finish like this, I’ve never seen something like this. The pain is hard to imagine. With a heavy heart, we saw her set a course record, but it could have been a lot more.”
Notably, Chepngetich’s current world record has remained controversial since the Kenyan was handed a three-year doping ban in 2025, overshadowing her 2024 Chicago result. Assefa’s near-record run has reignited conversation about when the mark will officially be overtaken by an untainted athlete.
The day’s results cemented Ethiopia’s dominance in the elite race: Assefa led an Ethiopian sweep of the top five positions in the women’s category, with Bedatu Hirpa finishing second and Dera Dida taking third. In the men’s elite race, another Ethiopian, Guye Adola, claimed the title with a winning time of 2:02:50.