Tigst Assefa won the 2026 BMW Berlin Marathon in a course record of 2:11:04 — the third-fastest women’s marathon ever — after her right Achilles tendon ruptured with roughly two kilometres to run while she was still inside world-record pace.
Forty kilometres on the edge of history
Assefa tore through Berlin on a perfect autumn morning. She opened a 25-second lead by 5 kilometres, stretched it to a minute by 15 kilometres, and crossed halfway in 1:04:57. The split projected to roughly 2:09:53, inside Ruth Chepngetich’s outright world record of 2:09:56.
At 35 kilometres she was even faster. A 1:47:32 split pointed to a 2:09:38 finish, and she passed 40 kilometres at 2:03:00 — still roughly 10 seconds under record schedule.
A finish held together by will
Then the tendon gave way. The final 2.195 kilometres took her 8:04, costing her roughly 78 seconds and the world record. She crossed the line, sat down, took her shoes off, and was helped from the finish area by Haile Gebrselassie. She missed the podium ceremony while race doctors treated her.
Race director Mark Milde told AFP: “We have to bow our heads to this performance. To finish like this, I’ve never seen something like this. The pain is hard to imagine.”
Her manager confirmed the tendon was broken. Surgery in Munich was scheduled for the following day, with an estimated six-month recovery.
From 800 metres to marathon royalty
The performance bettered her own Berlin course record of 2:11:53 from 2023 and marked a 49-second personal best. It also carved nearly five minutes off the women-only world record of 2:15:41 she had set at the London Marathon five months earlier.
Assefa began as an 800-metre specialist, racing for Ethiopia at the 2016 Rio Olympics. Her marathon debut came only in 2022. Four years later, she sits among the three fastest women ever over the distance.
A third Berlin title, won on one leg, now joins her Paris 2024 Olympic silver.
We are in good hopes that the proclaimed injury is going to heal fast.
