BOSTON — Peres Jepchirchir celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Boston Marathon women’s division by winning a see-saw sprint down Boylston Street on Monday as the race returned to its traditional Patriots’ Day spot in the schedule for the first time since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
Running shoulder to shoulder for most of the course, the reigning Olympic champion and Ethiopia’s Ababel Yeshaneh traded places eight times in the final mile, with Jepchirchir pulling ahead for good in the final 385 yards. Two hours and 21 minutes were required for the Kenyan to finish, with four seconds more than his opponent.
Kenya’s Evans Chebet pulled away with about four miles to go to win the men’s race in 2:06:51, 30 seconds ahead of Gabriel Geay of Tanzania. Benson Kipruto finished third.
American Daniel Romanchuk won his second career men’s wheelchair title in 1:26:58. Switzerland’s Manuela Schar won her second straight Boston crown and fourth overall, finishing in 1:41:08.
Sharing a weekend with the Red Sox home opener — the city’s other sporting rite of spring — more than 28,000 runners returned to the streets from Hopkinton to Copley Square six months after a smaller and socially distanced event that was the only fall race in its 126-year history.
Ukrainian flags were waved by supporters to show support for the handful of runners who covered 26.2-miles between Hopkinton and Copley Square. It was the most difficult part of their trip. In response to Ukraine’s invasion, athletes from Russia and Belarus were expelled.
Ukrainians who could not make it to Boston on time were granted a deferral of refund.
“Whatever they want to do, they can do,” Boston Athletic Association President Tom Grilk said. “Run this year, run next year. Do you want to have a dog? Whatever. There is no group we want to be more helpful to.”
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The 125th race was first postponed, then called off because of the pandemic — the first cancellation since the event began in 1897. It was postponed to October in 2021.
This year’s race marked the 50th anniversary of Nina Kuscsik’s victory as the first official women’s winner. Bobbi Gibb was the first woman to complete the race. She ran the first leg in 1966 with the bandits, an informal group of runners.
Valerie Rogosheske, who finished sixth in ’72, said she had been planning to hide in the bushes and run as a bandit before women got the go-ahead a few weeks before the race. She is running this year with her daughters, and served as the honorary starter for the women’s elite field.
“There was just this feeling of, ‘Boy, we’re going to do this. You can’t quit. There are eyes upon us,’” she said at the starting line on Monday. “Many people didn’t think we should be running a marathon. So that’s why we really felt that pressure but opportunity as well to finish this marathon.”
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