Tigst Assefa came agonizingly close to the world marathon record, but in the closing stretch her hopes faded. The Ethiopian athlete began to lose speed in the final kilometers and crossed the finish line visibly limping.
At first, the footage suggested cramps. However, after the finish, the director of the Berlin Marathon confirmed that Assefa had suffered a partial rupture of the Achilles tendon in her right leg.
Despite the injury, Assefa managed to finish in 2:11:05, a personal best, although far from the pace she had been maintaining. She ran the last 2.195 kilometers at 3:41 min/km, versus the 3:06 min/km she had sustained up to that point.
Ruth Chepngetich’s world record remains standing, after the Kenyan was sanctioned for doping and stripped of her results from the period following the infraction.
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