British distance runner takes girls’s race in robust circumstances in 2:30:43, Wealthy Sands stories, as Tsegay Weldlibanos takes the boys’s victory.
Tsegay Weldlibanos made a shocking comeback within the ultimate miles to win the JAL Honolulu Marathon on a moist and very 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 boys’s area by 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 presently residing in the US below political asylum), plus Kenyan Patrick Ketter Kiplagat. Raneri dropped again at that time however continued working and would finally 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 means again and rejoined the pack by 25km.
Within the 18th mile Haileselassie made a decisive transfer that shortly broke open the race. Solely Weldlibanos, who had the quickest private finest within the area 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 have been heading out on the course in the wrong way, he put a niche of 21 seconds on Weldlibanos at 35km.
Alas, the race was not over. By 40km the tenacious Weldlibanos had lower the deficit to only 4 seconds, and about 400m later he took the lead. “Tsegay has a whole lot 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 whole lot 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 arduous 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 by 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 prime 10 on the previous two Olympic Video games), Sintayehu Tilahun of Ethiopia and Vibian Chepkurui of Kenya. Because the second half started, Raneri, the boys’s rabbit, was now pacing this group.
Tilahun was the primary to lose contact (she would finally 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 flawed desk, inflicting a second of confusion. She needed to double again to seize her bottle, briefly shedding 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 unimaginable racer. I knew we have been each hurting, however [I told myself] I’ve simply bought to faux it,” Hauger-Thackery stated with fun.
Simply earlier than 23 miles she began to open a niche, 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 robust circumstances which included torrential rain.
“It was enjoyable … and completely different,” she says. “A tremendous race on the finish of a rollercoaster 12 months.”
🎙️ @d9monti pic.twitter.com/10LXM0K8Co
— AW (@AthleticsWeekly) December 14, 2025
“I put loads on myself this 12 months,” 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 forwards and backwards between monitor and highway 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 purpose for at present was to fall again in love with the marathon, end this race … and get my confidence again,” she admitted. “To try this and win it, I can end the 12 months comfortable now.”
Limo was the runner-up in 2:31:33, not far off her profitable time from final 12 months (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 stable gold winner’s medal crafted by Japanese goldsmiths SGC, a race companion.
Within the companion Begin to Park 10km Edwin Kurgat of Kenya (29:31) and Annika Reiss (34:19) have been the winners (the course distance isn’t licensed). “The nice and cozy-up was a downpour, so we bought drenched, instantly,” Reiss advised Race Outcomes Weekly. “However you realize, we bought our bathe in earlier than the race after which we bought to race and it was good circumstances throughout the race.”
Newly topped World Marathon Majors sequence champion Susannah Scaroni received the ladies’s wheelchair division in a course document 1:48:37. It was her first time ever in Hawaii.
“I liked the vitality,” stated Scaroni. “I liked that you can inform that you simply have been by the ocean and plenty of comfortable crowds, despite the fact that they have been getting soaked.”
Yukina Ota of Japan efficiently defended his title within the males’s wheelchair division, clocking a course document 1:28:25.
Race Outcomes Weekly is sponsored by RunCzech, organizers of the Prague Marathon and a sequence 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.
