Watch the dramatic final seconds of the Boston Marathon races

(Image credit: Associated Press.)

published 15 April 2019

Ethiopia's Worknesh Degefa and Kenya's Lawrence Cherono won the women's and men's Boston Marathon on Monday.

Degefa finished the race with an unofficial time of 2 hours, 23 minutes, 30 seconds after breaking away from the pack early. Per The Associated Press, she ran uncontested for the last 20 miles en route to becoming the 8th Ethiopian woman to win the marathon and the third in seven years.

Cherono, meanwhile, won a tightly contested affair in his Boston debut. He crossed the finish line after 2 hours, 7 minutes, 57 seconds — just two seconds ahead of runner-up and 2015 champion Lelisa Desisa of Ethiopia. AP reports the two, along with third-place finisher Kenyan Kenneth Kipkemoi, were running "shoulder-to-shoulder" after the 24th mile of the race. For the last 200 meters, Cherono and Desisa made it a two-man race, with the former barely edging past the latter. Watch the intense final stretch below. Tim O'Donnell

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Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.