United Airlines NYC Half – News – Lokedi, Kipchumba Clear Winners AT 18th United Airlines NYC Half

LOKEDI, KIPCHUMBA CLEAR WINNERS AT 18TH UNITED AIRLINES NYC HALF
By David Monti, @d9monti.bsky.social
(c) 2025 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved – Used with permission.

NEW YORK (16-Mar) — New York City may have been socked-in with fog and drizzle this morning, but the champions of the 18th United Airlines NYC Half were crystal clear.  Sharon Lokedi (Under Armour) and Abel Kipchumba (adidas), both of Kenya, won the open divisions by margins of 42 and six seconds, respectively, and both set event records.  Manuela Schar of Switzerland and Geert Schipper of the Netherlands each won the professional wheelchair divisions by about four minutes.  Lokedi and Kipchumba each won $20,000 in prize money, while Schar and Schipper took home $7500.  A record 28,750 runners started today’s race on a course which ran from Prospect Park in Brooklyn, over the Brooklyn Bridge, to Central Park in Manhattan.

EARLY FAST PACES

With a tough course –including an uphill last five kilometers– athletes are usually cautious in the early stages of the NYC Half.  

But not this year.

Both the elite men and women got on a quick pace early, especially the men, where USA half-marathon record-holder Conner Mantz (Nike) ripped through the first 5-K in 13:50.  Only four other athletes –Kipchumba, Patrick Dever of Great Britain (Puma Elite Running), Hillary Bor of Colorado Springs (Hoka), and Wesley Kiptoo (Northern Arizona Elite) of Kenya– could handle that pace.

“This is a really big race,” Mantz told Race Results Weekly.  “I tapered well for it.  This was kind of where I was going to test things out for the Boston Marathon.  So, this was about trying to cover moves, push on the hills, make sure I ran smooth, and was able to adjust off the paces.”

As the leading men started the ascent of Brooklyn Bridge in the eighth kilometer, Mantz continued to press.  At the crest of the 41-meter high roadway above the East River, Kiptoo was beginning to lose contact (he would eventually finish fifth in 1:00:56).  Mantz split 10-K in 27:48 –on pace for an improbable 58:41 finish– but Kipchumba, Dever and Bor remained with him.

Running north on the FDR Drive, a six-lane highway that is normally choked with traffic, Kipchumba became the aggressor and went to the front.  Dever and Bor fell back, leaving Kipchumba and Mantz to battle it out in the last seven kilometers.  In the 17th kilometer Kipchumba put in a surge, and began zig-zagging in the middle of 42nd Street.

“I was trying to run…