Rosemary Wanjiru heads the women’s field of the 51st BMW Berlin Marathon, which takes place on September 21. The Kenyan features a personal record of 2:16:14 and is tenth on the list of the fastest women in history. Norway’s Karoline Grovdal is a very promising European runner who will make her second attempt at the classic distance after dropping out in her debut race in Hamburg earlier this year. A number of athletes in the men’s elite field were released earlier.
Wanjiru and company
Wanjiru returns to the race where her marathon career got off to an impressive start in 2022. Three years ago, she finished second in Berlin in 2:18:00. Six months later, Wanjiru won the Tokyo Marathon, and in 2024, she was second there with her current best time of 2:16:14. The Kenyan intended to run the 50th Berlin event a year ago but had to withdraw due to an injury.
She finished sixth during the 2023 Budapest World Athletics Championships marathon, finishing in the time of 2:26:42.
Degitu Azimeraw is another runner in Berlin’s elite field who has already run well under 2:20:00, and she has already beaten this mark several times. The 24-year-old Ethiopian ran her best race to date in London 2021. There she achieved a surprise runner-up position in 2:17:58.
Like Wanjiru, Ethiopia’s Mestawut Fikir is also returning to Berlin. After the 25-year-old won her marathon debut in Paris a year ago, she improved to 2:18:48 in Berlin, taking second place.
Karoline Grovdal took the half-marathon at the European Athletics Championships in Rome last summer. While this was her biggest career victory so far, the 35-year-old also won the European cross-country title three years in a row, from 2021 to 2023. Grovdal ran her marathon debut in Hamburg this April, hoping to make an instant impact by attacking the famous Norwegian national record by Ingrid Kristiansen. Back in 1985, Kristiansen ran a spectacular world record time of 2:21:06 in London. That global mark stood for over a decade and is still the Norwegian record. Grovdal was unlucky in Hamburg since she had to drop out due to a shoe problem. She will now hope to bounce back in Berlin.
More than 50,000 runners are expected to race the event.
World best performances
The all-time fastest marathon was run by fellow Kenyan, Ruth Chepngetich, last year in Chicago at 2:09:56. She was later suspended for testing positive for a banned diuretic and masking agent. The second-fastest time in history was run in Berlin in 2023 by Ethiopian Tigst Assefa. She clocked in a 2:11:53 in Berlin. The third-fastest is by Dutch athlete (former Ethiopian) Sifan Hassan from Chicago 2024, where she clocked in at 2:13:44.
Nine athletes have run faster than Wanjiru, and 15 performances are ahead of hers. Three of the top-23 performances all-time have been run on the Berlin course. Wanjiru has the opportunity in 2025 to move up the list.
More information is available online at: www.berlin-marathon.com
