REIGNING CHAMPION KORIR LEADS CHICAGO MARATHON ELITE FIELD
By David Monti, @d9monti
(c) 2025 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved – Used with permission.
(14-Aug) — Kenya’s John Korir, who is the reigning champion of both the Boston and Chicago Marathons, is headed back to Chicago on October 13th with the hope of retaining the title he won so audaciously last year. Korir, 28, blasted the second half in Chicago last year in a sizzling 60:25, clocking a personal best 2:02:44, the second-fastest winning time ever at the event. He is now the eighth-fastest man in history.
“I was excited,” Korir told reporters after last year’s race. “I knew I was in 2:02 shape.” He added: “I knew I wanted to close the season in a PB and I did it.”
For 2025 Korir will have to overcome a powerful elite field assembled by executive race director Carey Pinkowski. Five men with personal best times of 2:04:01 or better will challenge Korir, Pinkowski said today, including the rising Ugandan star Jacob Kiplimo who ran an excellent debut of 2:03:37 at last April’s TCS London Marathon. Korir is not fazed.
“I am confident that I will be able to defend my title at the 2025 Bank of America Chicago Marathon this October,” said Korir through a media release. “My training is going well, and I am focused on achieving another personal best time.”
Korir, who last month won the Utica Boilermaker 15-K and clinched the 2024/2025 Professional Road Running Organization title, used the same strategy to win Boston. In Chicago he ran 4:37 for the 20th mile and 14:01 from 30 to 35 km. In Boston, he ran 4:39 for the uphill 20th mile to put the race away.
“We did the same like Chicago,” Korir told reporters. “We repeated it for Boston.”
Kenya’s Timothy Kiplagat, second at last year’s Tokyo Marathon, is the second-fastest man in the field with a personal best of 2:02:55. Fellow Kenyans Amos Kipruto (2:03:13), who was third in Chicago last year, and Cybrian Kotut (2:03:22), who took third in Boston, will look to replace Korir atop the podium, as will two-time Olympic marathon medalist Bashir Abdi (2:03:36) of Belgium. Also in the field is the Kenyan veteran Geoffrey Kamworor, twice the TCS New York City Marathon champion.
Conner Mantz will lead the home-country charge. After running 2:05:08 at the Boston Marathon last April, Mantz is gearing up to break Khalid Khannouchi’s 23 year-old national record of 2:05:38. Veteran Galen Rupp, 39, will return to Chicago for the first time since…
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