Fotyen Tesfay runs 2:10:53 in her first marathon, the second-fastest woman ever
The Ethiopian 10,000 m runner went through halfway in 65:05 in Barcelona and finished 57 seconds off the world record, taking nine minutes off the course best.
Photograph: Fotyen Tesfay on the podium after winning the 2026 Barcelona Marathon, by Jorge Jaramillo, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia CommonsFotyen Tesfay had never run a marathon before Sunday. She ran the Zurich Marató Barcelona in 2:10:53. Only Ruth Chepngetich's 2:09:56 from Chicago in 2024 is faster, by 57 seconds. It is the fastest debut in history by a distance, and it took nine minutes off the Barcelona course record of 2:19:33 that Sharon Chelimo set a year ago.
Tesfay, 28, went through halfway in 65:05 and was still on world record pace through 35 km. The wind got her in the last part of the race, she said afterwards, and she could not push. Joan Jepkosgei Kiplimo of Kenya was second in 2:18:42 and Zeineba Yimer of Ethiopia, the 2023 winner, third in 2:18:49. Both would have won most years.
Her background is the track. Seventh in the Olympic 10,000 m in Paris, eighth at the World Championships in Tokyo last year, 63:21 for the half in Valencia in 2023, and a Berlin Half win in 2025. She said the result was not what she expected and that she would go for the world record next time.
Abel Chelangat of Uganda won the men's race in 2:04:57, a personal best, breaking away at 40 km from Kenya's Patrick Mosin, 2:05:01, and Jonathan Korir, 2:05:29. Chelangat was fifth at the World Championships last year. The race, a World Athletics Elite Label event, sold all 32,000 places, a record, with 63 percent of the field from abroad.
A first marathon that ends a minute from the world record. The question in Barcelona was not whether she would break it, but where.
Sources: Zurich Marató Barcelona; Athletics Weekly.
