Marathon at worlds takes weird twists: a false start, a near wrong turn and, finally, a photo finish

By Canadian Press on September 15, 2025.

TOKYO (AP) — They ran for more than two hours and needed a photo finish to determine the winner.

Alphonce Simbu of Tanzania edged out Amanal Petros in a wild men’s marathon at world championships Monday.

It was a 26.2-mile (42.195-kilometer) race through the streets of Tokyo that began with a false start and ended with a sprint down the homestretch of the track — but only after Simbu nearly missed the turn into the stadium.

“I have never seen something like this in a marathon,” said Petros, after getting nudged out despite lunging and tumbling over the finish line. “It’s like the 100 meters.”

Closer, in fact.

The difference in the men’s marathon was 0.03 seconds.

The differences in the men’s and women’s 100-meter races Sunday night: .05 and .15 seconds.

It marked the second straight day a marathon was decided with an all-out sprint to the line. The day before, Peres Jepchirchir won the women’s race by .2 seconds.

This men’s race included a jump of the gun by Vincent Ngetich of Kenya that forced race officials to call the runners back after about 100 meters. Nobody gets eliminated for a false start in a distance race.

Simbu said he was confused as he rounded the last curve on the way into the stadium to finish the race.

“I saw some people pointing one way, and the motorcycles going the other,” he said.

It was Petros and third-place finisher Iliass Aouani who pointed Simbu in the right direction, but the slip-up cost him the lead.

Once he got back on track, “my mind was saying, you’ve got to do whatever it takes to get into the stadium and finish this up.”

This marked the closest marathon in world championships history. Both men were officially clocked at 2 hours, 9 minutes, 48 seconds, with the photo showing Simbu crossing the line a fraction sooner before Petros tumbled to the deck.

“It was just try, try, try, and I finished” barely ahead, Simbu said. “It is amazing to me. I made history today.”

Simbu gave Tanzania its first Olympic or world championship gold in any event.

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AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games

Eddie Pells, The Associated Press