Who needs a red carpet when you have the painted blue lines through Boston’s Back Bay?

When the top runners in Monday’s Boston Marathon turned right on Hereford, then left on Boylston to complete the 129th running of the historic 26.2 mile course, there were a fair few familiar names near the top of the ranks. But once they crossed the finish line, with John Korir breaking the tape in the men’s race and Sharon Lokedi in the women’s, the dynamic of the global marathoning scene felt decidedly different.

There weren’t a lot of true “upsets” or surprises out of Boston this year; instead the unifying theme seemed to be a lot of up-and-coming stars making a true statement that they’re not so up-and-coming any more. They’re here.

John Korir has been running marathons since 2018 and running in the 2:05s since 2022, but it wasn’t until last fall that he became much more of a household name via his first World Marathon Major victory, an epic 2:02:44 win in Chicago. After finishing ninth in Boston in 2023 and fourth in 2024, all of a sudden Korir was forcing the world to consider him a serious contender for the win.

But Korir still had to go through defending champ Sisay Lemma, two-time champ Evans Chebet, and the rest of the talented elite field, and when he fell flat on his face a few steps into the race, it looked like perhaps he wouldn’t get the chance to back up his Chicago performance. But ultimately, Lemma and Chebet would both clock DNFs, Korir would stick with the lead pack through a fast first half (61:54), then drop a lethal move up Heartbreak hill to put 16 seconds on the field between mile 20 and 21, and ride the momentum to the finish. He broke the tape in 2:04:45, the second-fastest winning mark in race history. He also became half of the first sibling duo to win Boston titles—his older brother Wesley won the 2012 edition of the race.

After the dust settled on Monday, Korir now looks like a very different kind of runner: he’s 28 years old, has won his last two World majors in commanding form across two different race styles, and in a relatively wide-open year for the world’s top male marathoner, he’s now inarguably part of the conversation. A few days ago, he was an “in the mix” kind of guy—helped by the fact that there were no double WMM major winners on the men’s side in 2024—but now he’s the guy to beat.

Behind him, there were a number of athletes that also announced their arrivals on the global stage, most notably American Conner Mantz, who backed up his breakout start to 2025 with a 2:05:08 run for fourth place behind Tanzanian Alphonce Simbu and Kenyan Cybrian Kotut. It was both Mantz’s fastest performance by over two minutes and his highest WMM finish to date, falling just four seconds short of the podium and ten seconds behind Ryan Hall’s all-conditions U.S. best from the same course in 2011. Now, we no longer have to speculate that Mantz is probably a 2:05 guy based on comparable performances; he’s proven it definitively.

It was a great day for BYU alumni across the board as former Cougars picked up three spots in the top ten, with Canadian Rory Linkletter (sixth in 2:07:02) and Clayton Young (seventh in 2:07:04) both clocking career-high finishes and lifetime-best times. Linkletter’s previous best finish at Boston was 33rd in 2021, so it’s gotta feel good to jump a fair few spots. And one spot ahead of them, two-time World 5000m champ Muktar Edris showed he’s going to be just as hard to beat on the roads as the track, as his marathon debut ended with an impressive 2:05:59, fifth-place finish.

On the women’s side, the race opened up at a crawl over the first few miles but didn’t stay that way for long. By 10 kilometers the leaders were running sub-2:16 pace and the eventual top five hit halfway in 1:08:46. Irene Cheptai, Yalemzerf Yehualaw, and Amane Beriso have all clocked sub-2:18 performances in the past, but this was unfamiliar territory for last year’s 1-2, Hellen Obiri and Sharon Lokedi, whose penchant for championship-style racing and prowess over hilly courses like Boston and NYC meant that they entered the race with personal bests more than five minutes slower than the top seeds’. But experience and talent can’t always be captured by past times alone, and Lokedi and Obiri shook off all other competitors one by one through the Newton hills until, by mile 22, only Yehualaw remained with the duo.

Lokedi then put on a master-class that also served as a taste of Obiri’s own medicine, tightening the screws from 35k onward and simply running the kick out of her rival’s legs. Obiri didn’t truly cave until the final mile, when Lokedi split 5:05 to Obiri’s 5:23, and after finishing behind her fellow Kenyan in their last five straight matchups, Lokedi got back on top of the podium with her second WMM win in a blazing 2:17:22 course record.

She and Obiri (2:17:41) now have PBs that reflect closer to their all-out capability, and while Lokedi has never finished outside the top ten in a marathon, her victory in Boston feels like the strongest vindication yet that her stunning 2022 debut in New York was no fluke. Obiri still may be one of the best, if not the best, marathoner in the world, but Lokedi’s name deserves mention in the same breath as Olympic champ Sifan Hassan, world record holder Ruth Chepngetich, and the handful of fellow world-beaters with legitimate claims to world #1.

American performances in Boston shook out as a bit of a mixed bag, as pre-race contenders like Emma Bates (13th in 2:25:10), Dakotah Popehn (16th in 2:26:09), Sara Hall (18th in 2:26:32), and Keira D’Amato (35th in 2:35:57) didn’t have the days that they were hoping for. One of the more impressive showings was 41-year-old Des Linden claiming top Master honors in 17th overall in 2:26:16, her fastest marathon in eight years but also her final Boston as a professional, which she announced shortly before the race. But the breakout performers of the day were Jess McClain and Annie Frisbie, finishing seventh (2:22:43) and eighth (2:23:21), respectively, in new PBs.