Eritrean Berhane Tesfay and Kenyan Joyce Chepkemoi Tele New champions emerged at the Tata Mumbai Marathon 2025

Eritrean Berhane Tesfay and Kenyan Joyce Chepkemoi Tele New champions emerged at the Tata Mumbai Marathon 2025

 Mumbai, 19 Jan. 2025: New champions emerged in the twentieth edition of the Tata

Mumbai Marathon, a World Athletics Gold Label Road Race, as Eritrean Berhane Tesfay

and Kenyan Joyce Chepkemoi Tele won the men's and women's categories, respectively.

The top three winners each took home prize money of USD 50,000, USD 25,000 and USD

15,000 respectively.

The winners were happy to celebrate their victories here for two reasons -- Tesfay for his

first-ever marathon triumph and Tele for her second successive win in three months in a

marathon.

Six men, including defending champion Lemi Berhanu, ran together in a bunch in most parts

of the race. At the same time, pacer Timoty Kibet from Kenya pulled them to 27 km before

withdrawing at that stage. After the 30K, Kenyan Philemon Rono and Lemi exchanged the

lead briefly among themselves. After 35K, the runners realized that the event record was

slipping away. Hence, only the top-place finish matters in their mind.

Ethiopian Tesfaye Demeke, who finished ninth in the 2020 edition here, snatched the lead

when there were only 3 km left to finish. The other runners started chasing him. Both Rono

and Lemi started showing fatigue as two Eritreans, Berhane and Merhawi Kesete, increased

their tempo and ran ahead of Demeke in the waning stages of the race.

Berhane Tesfay crossed the finish line first in 2:11:44, with team-mate Kesete taking the

runner-up position six seconds later. Demeke completes the podium in 2:11:56.

Lemi, who logged back-to-back wins here in 2023-2024, finished sixth in a nondescript

2:14:54 and could not accomplish a hat trick of victories similar to Kenyan John Kelai, who

won in 2007-2008 and landed third place in 2009.

Tesfay said in a post-race interview, "I'm happy to have won today's race. The race's first

half went smoothly, and I stayed focused on keeping a steady pace. After 25K, my strategy

shifted to securing the win rather than chasing a specific time. This victory means a lot to

me, and it's a testament to the hard work and training that has gone into preparing for this

moment".

Tele became the third Kenyan woman to win in Mumbai:

Joyce Chepkemoi Tele (29) registered her second straight marathon victory in three

months. Having won her maiden race in Ljubljana City Marathon in Slovakia last October

in 2:20:17, the Kenyan runner was expected to return a better timing than the event record

of 2:24:15 stands in the name of Anchialem Haymanot since 2023.

With defending champion Aberash Minsewo from Ethiopia and the pre-race favourite

Shitaye Eshete (Bahrain) also in the race for the top prize, the women runners were

expected to take a course record bonus this time.