NEW YORK: There are two main things to look for when picking an Olympic marathon team: speed and success.
Sisay Lemma has both.
The 2024 Boston Marathon champion says he expects to be on the roster for the Paris Games when Ethiopian officials make their decisions in the coming weeks. Even before his Boston win, Lemma already had good credentials with a course-record 2 hours, 1 minute, 48 seconds in Valencia last year that was the fourth-fastest ever run in a competitive marathon.
“Because of the fast race I ran in Valencia, the time that I got the fastest time, and also the marathon that I won here, right now from all the Ethiopian athletes I’m the fastest,” Lemma said on Tuesday, a day after winning in Boston. “So I’m confident I am the one who is going to be selected.”
Lemma blistered the Boston course with a 1:00:19 first half, opening a lead of almost three-quarters of a mile with six miles to go. He slowed over the final stretch and finished in 2:06:17 but still beat fellow Ethiopian Mohamed Esa by 41 seconds — the length of more than two football fields.
Lemma said he wanted to redeem himself after finishing 30th and dropping out in two previous Boston attempts. The Olympics are next on his redemption tour; he also dropped out of the race at the Tokyo Games in 2021.
“When I ran in Tokyo, the Ethiopian people were expecting a gold medal, and a good result. But we were not able to do it because there was so much heat,” Lemma said. “But now in Paris and we try, we will try to redeem that again and, you know, win the gold for Ethiopia.”
Hellen Obiri earned her second straight Boston Marathon crown when she outkicked fellow Kenyans Sharon Lokedi and Edna Kiplagat in the final mile to finish in 2:27:37 and win by eight seconds. The Kenyan federation first announced a provisional roster of 10 women and has since trimmed it to six.
The win makes Obiri, who also won in New York last fall, a virtual lock for Paris. But she hopes Lokedi will join her.
“We were 10 and now we are six. And Sharon was still with me,” Obiri said Tuesday. “I do hope I will be on the team with Sharon because the Paris course, it’s a tough course. It’s even tougher than Boston. If Sharon is my teammate in Paris, I will have a fantastic moment racing with her.”
Boston wheelchair winners Marcel Hug and Eden Rainbow-Cooper are also aiming for Paris. But first both are planning to race in the London Marathon next week. (Unlike elite runners, who run at most three marathons a year, wheelchair racers can be back on the road in a week.)
“Paris is definitely in my plans,” said Hug, who has won 22 major marathons and two Paralympic gold medals at the distance. “We are still in the qualifying period, but I already have some good, fast qualifying times. So it should not be a problem for me.”
Rainbow-Cooper, 22, doesn’t have the same resume but she also expects to make her first British Paralympic team. She is the third-youngest woman to win the Boston wheelchair race, and the first from Britain.
“I’ve got the times to qualify,” she said Tuesday, a day after winning Boston in 1:35:11 for her first major marathon victory. “Our selection isn’t for a few months yet, so it’s just about staying consistent. But Paris is definitely in the forefront.”
Hug said he had a mixture of pride and relief after Monday’s race, when he crashed into a barrier and flipped on his side but righted himself and still set a course record by 93 seconds.
“(I was) proud to overcome, that I still could make the fast time,” Hug said. “But also grateful that nothing worse happened, that the wheelchair is OK, that nothing is broken, no bones broken. So it’s a mix of these two emotions.”
