WRAP | Cape Town Marathon: Records tumble on a perfect day for rapid running

It was a day of rapid running at the Cape Town Marathon with three of the four races finishing with course records and the men’s elite race producing the fastest marathon finish on the continent.

Ethiopia’s Mohamed Esa was the big winner in the men’s race, finishing in 2:04:55, smashing the previous record set by his compatriot Abdisa Tola in 2024 (2:08:16).

Such was the pace of the race this year that every one of the top 10 finishers ran faster than Tola’s previous record time.

The final few kilometres of the race was a sprint between another Ethiopian, Yihunilign Adane and Esa. But Esa, coming into the race with the finest form, having run 2:04:49 at the Chicago Marathon last year, was too strong, sprinting away to a comfortable victory ahead of Adane who finished in 2:05:06.

Kenyan Kalipus Lomwai, who was in contention for the lead across the last seven kilometres, fell away behind the Ethiopians at the end but was far enough ahead of the chasing group to finish in third in 2:05:06.

Throughout, it was a race through Cape Town that had several changes of the lead but the tempo was hot from the get-go with South African half-marathon stars Adriaan Wildschutt and Adam Lipschitz as the pace setters dragging the elites along.

The big superstar of the race, two-time Olympic gold medallist Eliud Kipchoge was dropped from the leading group at around 15 kilometres into the trek. He ended 16th in a time of 2:13:29.

There was nearly a massive shock as the Wildschutt, who was set to drop out after 21 kilometres, like Lipschitz did, continuing to run the race.

As his right, having started the race, he could have finished the race and looked set to pull off a remarkable shock result after pushing out to a big lead after 35 kilometres.

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