Chebet and Lokedi of Kenya win NYC Marathon races in debuts

You never forget your first race, and surely Sharon Lokedi will never forget her latest Sunday morning in Manhattan.

The 28-year-old Kenyan, who lives in Arizona, earned her first New York City Marathon victory in her first try. Lokedi crossed the finish line in 2 hours, 23 minutes, 23 seconds.

“I didn’t expect to win,” she said. “I expected to run well. But it ended up being a good outcome, so I’m excited.”

The race was Lokedi’s first professional marathon anywhere and marked the eighth time a runner has won the NYC Marathon in a true marathon debut.

Earlier this year, Lokedi finished second in the New York Mini 10K in 30:52, third in the B.A.A. 5K in 15:16 and fourth in the NYC Half Marathon in 1:08.14.

“I just came in [and] wanted to be in the race,” Lokedi said. “I knew I was strong. I had really good training. I just wanted to go and put myself in it, race, and see where I ended up.”

Runners began on Staten Island, ran through Brooklyn and Queens into Manhattan, turned around in the Bronx and headed back toward the finish line in Central Park. More than 50,000 runners were expected to make the journey behind the professionals.

Lokedi was 10th at the 10K mark (34:26), sixth at the halfway point (1:12:17) and third at 35K (1:59:13) before finally overtaking Israel’s Lonah Chemtai Salpeter in the 25th mile. Chemtai Salpeter finished second in 2:23:30, unable to catch Lokedi on the final Central Park stretch.

“Halfway through, I felt really good,” Lokedi said. “I had really good help from Salpeter. We really helped each other.”

As for more marathons — specifically in the 2024 Olympics in Paris — Lokedi wasn’t ready to commit yet but didn’t say no.

“To be honest, I’m just going to enjoy this, go back to Arizona, sit down with my coach and lay out the plan for the next,” she said.

While the women’s race featured a marathon novice, the men’s field crowned a champion who already has made his name in the marathon game.

Evans Chebet, winner of the Boston Marathon in April, won in 2:08:41 in his first NYC Marathon. The 33-year-old Kenyan has finished first or second in 12 marathons. He is the first man to win both Boston and New York in the same calendar year since Kenya’s Geoffrey Mutai in 2011.

Both Lokedi and Chebet were awarded $100,000.

The race was dominated early by Brazil’s Daniel Do Nascimento. Nascimento, 24, began at a blistering pace on an unseasonably warm November day, with temperatures in the 70s. He ran the first 10 kilometers in 28:42 and the half-marathon in 1:01:22, leaving open the possibility of a course-record bid (2:05:06, set by Mutai in 2011).

But the pace caught up to Do Nascimento in a big way. He began to falter 20 miles in, first leaving the course for an 18-second Port-A-John stop at mile 21. He took a fall shortly thereafter and received medical attention before dropping out of the race.

“I didn’t know how far he was, but I knew it was hot and humid and he was going at a high pace,” Chebet said through an interpreter. “I have a lot of experience. I knew I was going to surpass him.”

Course records fell in both wheelchair divisions. American Susannah Scaroni won the women’s race in 1:42:43, breaking fellow American Tatyana McFadden’s 2015 record of 1:43:04. Switzerland’s Marcel Hug won his fifth men’s title, this time in 1:25:26, which broke Australian Kurt Fearnley’s 2006 record of 1:29:22.

“I knew my speeds were really high,” Scaroni said. “I was trying to maintain as high a pace as I could, knowing how strong of a field I had behind me.”

She added: “I knew that tailwind was really helping me out today and I tried to take advantage of that as long as I could. That being said, when you hit the headwind at about mile 21, especially at Fifth Avenue and into the park, it’s always hard.”

Hug and Scaroni were awarded $75,000 each — $25,000 for winning and an additional $50,000 for breaking the course record.