Lokedi, Kipchumba Clear Winners At 18th United Airlines NYC Half

(c) 2025 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved. Published 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 5K 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 10K 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 away,” Kipchumba said after the race.  “I was trying to shake the move.”

Mantz, 28, battled to stay with the 31 year-old Kenyan, who also won last year’s race.

“Some of those moves that Abel put in were pretty tough,” admitted Mantz.  “I just knew that’s where he was trying to make his move.”  He added: “When he started to zig-zag I was like, this is his move. I think this is his last move.  I have to go with it.”

After turning right onto Seventh Avenue and running through Times Square, Kipchumba started to pull away.  By the time he hit the 20K mark at the south end of Central Park, Kipchumba had five seconds on Mantz.

“When I see he is not following me, I maintained the pace and ran (by) myself,” said Kipchumba.

Kipchumba ran the final stages in Central Park to finish on the famous TCS New York City Marathon finish line, albeit in the opposite direction.  He broke the tape in 59:09, breaking Haile Gebrselassie’s 2007 event record of 59:24, a remarkable feat given that the two-time Olympic gold medalist from Ethiopia ran on a course that was 30 meters downhill.

“I am very happy,” said a smiling Kipchumba when a reporter pointed out that he had broken Gebrselassie’s record.

Mantz, who finished second in 59:15, was equally pleased with his race.  Despite the hilly course, he ran two seconds faster than his American record time from Houston in January (the NYC Half course is not quite record-eligible).  His preparations for April’s Boston Marathon were right on track, he said.

“I’d give myself an ‘A’,” said Mantz.  “Today was a good day.  I think training’s been a lot better than it was going into Houston.  Obviously, Coach Eyestone has prepared me very well.”  He added: “I’m very happy about that.”

Bor, who represents Hoka, finished third in 59:55 recording his first sub-60:00 half-marathon in four tries (three of them this year).  He said he’s learning the event and is starting to feel more comfortable with the distance.

“Racing against Conner Mantz brings the best out of everyone,” Bor told reporters.  He added: “This is, let me count, my fourth half.  It’s getting more comfortable, it’s getting more comfortable.  I’m getting used to it.”

Back in 12th place two-time Olympian Woody Kincaid (Nike) made his half-marathon debut in 1:03:00.  He had to deal with some cramping early in the race, and tried to make the best of what he said was a good learning experience.  He had never run a road race longer than five kilometers before today.

“It was tough.  I got to the Brooklyn Bridge at five miles and I have this cramp every now and then,” said Kincaid, who pointed to his solar plexus.  “For about a minute and twenty, if you see my split.  I thought about how I’m going to attack this from here on out, and I just grinded away after that.  Honestly, for the first time you don’t know what’s going to happen.  You have to give yourself some grace and try to be competitive no matter what.”

LOKEDI BREAKS AWAY

Thanks to some early front-running by Britain’s Calli Hauger-Thackery (Nike), the women’s race set up for a fast time.  Hauger-Thackery, who like Mantz is running the Boston Marathon, got to 10K in 32:13.  Only six other women –Lokedi, Diane van Es of the Netherlands (Asics); Fiona O’Keeffe (Puma Elite Running), Emma Bates (Asics), and Sara Hall (Asics) of the United States; and debutante Amy-Eloise Neale (On)– were able to maintain that pace.

“I don’t know, I’m not good at running too slow,” Hauger-Thackery told Race Results Weekly.  “I felt good and I wanted to, like, go for it.  I don’t think I did any crazy moves, but tried to keep it honest.”

Neale and Hall couldn’t hold the pace through 15K (48:12), and Bates was slipping off the back.  Going west on 42nd Street, just a few hundred meters from the United Nations, Lokedi stepped on the gas and quickly opened up a gap on the field.  Despite the elevation gain of about 14 meters, Lokedi ran a snappy 15:26 from 15 to 20K and put the race away.  She ran the Central Park portion of the course alone, and clocked 1:07:04, well under Hellen Obiri’s 2023 event record of 1:07:21 (run on a similar course).

“I was like, we’re almost there so time to go,” Lokedi said of her 16th and 17th kilometers in Manhattan.  The Under Armour athlete continued: “I started to warm up.  I felt like I was getting faster and warmed-up, my rhythm and my cadence.  I just kept going with it.”

Lokedi, who finished second at last year’s Boston Marathon to Obiri, is pointing for the same race this year.  She got great feedback today, she said.

“I think it’s a confidence where my training is,” said Lokedi.  “Because, sometimes you just do training and you don’t know where you were.  So, I think this was a good run to, like, to tell me what I need to do.”

O’Keeffe and Hauger-Thackery battled for second, and the American got the best of the Brit by just three seconds, 1:07:46 to 1:07:49.  For O’Keeffe it was her first race of the year, and her first race start since dropping out of the Paris Olympic Marathon last August with a hip injury.

“It’s just really great to be back out there doing what I love,” said O’Keeffe, whose training partner Taylor Roe just won the USATF half-marathon national title two weeks ago.  “I’m glad it was a half so there was some time to figure it out on the course.  It was a fun day, and I’d love to come back and do this race again.”

Van Es finished fourth in 1:08:03, a much better performance than the 1:12:03 she ran here last year.  Neale ran a solid debut in 1:08:12 to finish fifth, and Bates was sixth in 1:08:21.

Norway’s Karoline Bjerkeli Grøvdal, the race’s defending women’s open champion, was unable to run with the leaders today and finished seventh in 1:09:03.  Although her time was six seconds faster than last year’s, she wasn’t happy with her race and said that she wasn’t feeling well.

“It was tough,” the four-time Olympian, who represents adidas, told Race Results Weekly.  “I don’t feel that well today.  I’m not sure if it’s something going on in my body, but I felt from the start that something was not very normal.  It was a tough race.”

SCHAR AND SCHIPPER ROLL AWAY TO VICTORY

Manuela Schar, who in 2019 won all six Abbott World Marathon Majors, blasted away from her two key rivals, Americans Susannah Scaroni and Tatyana McFadden, right from the start and was never challenged.  She clocked 54:09 and said her biggest obstacle was the cool and damp conditions.

“I think it was a difficult day for us to make the right call for the gear,” she told Race Results Weekly.  “It was so foggy and it felt wet.  I think I was just lucky and choose the right gloves for today.”

Schipper, who was timed in 49:53, more than a minute slower than he did last year.  He said it was a challenge to maintain his focus while pushing for so long by himself.

“That’s a good question,” he said with a laugh when asked how he stayed mentally engaged in the race.  “I don’t have a real good answer on it.”

PHOTO: Manuela Schar of Switzerland and Geert Schipper of the Netherlands were the 2024 United Airlines NYC Half champions in the wheelchair division (photo by Jane Monti for Race Results Weekly)