2014 London Marathon Women's Race - Post Race Writeup

2014 Virgin Money London Marathon - The Women's Race
by MarathonGuide.com

Five Outstanding Women

Photo Credit: Victah Sailer/PhotoRun

As we wrote in our race preview, we thought the 2014 London Marathon would be a contest among five women - with the field starting the race faster than 2:20 pace and then runners holding on as best as they could. To the most part we were correct. The field was filled with five outstanding women: Priscah Jeptoo, the defending champion and Olympic Silver medalist; Tiki Gelana, the 2012 Olympics Gold medalist and woman with the fastest PR (2:18:58); Edna Kiplagat, the reigning Marathon World Champion and two-time London Marathon runner-up; Florence Kiplagat, the 2013 Berlin Marathon champion and woman with the second fastest PR (2:19:44); and Tirunesh Dibaba, making her marathon debut after moving up from the 10000m, 5000m and cross-country distances at which she held 3 Olympic Gold medals, 2 Olympic Bronze medals, 9 World Champion titles and two World Championship runner-up finishes.

Running Fast - sub 2:19?
As expected, the pacemakers led the women out at a robust pace - but oddly Tiki Gelana fell off the pace shortly after the sixth mile; leaving the pacemakers and other four women to go through the halfway mark in 1:09:15. Obviously this was faster than anyone's personal best marathon pace, so the question thereafter would be whether the women could hold the pace or, if not, which woman would fade the least.

Priscah Jeptoo was next to drop out - just before mile 18; and Tirunesh Dibaba dropped back a bit from the two Kiplagats.

Two Kiplagats and a Debut
For nearly eight miles, all knew the winner would be Kiplagat - it just wasn't certain which of the Kiplagats it would be - although history had it that Florence had never finished ahead of Edna in a marathon. Through mile 25 and beyond, the two women continued together; until a final pick up/sprint where Edna Kiplagat proved she was the strongest and/or toughest and ran through to win in 2:20:21. Florence Kiplagat finished a few seconds back in 2:20:24; and in her debut marathon, Tirunesh Dibaba of Ethiopia ran strongly in for third place in 2:20:35.