Berhane Tesfay and Joyce Chepkemoi Tele emerged new champions at the Tata Mumbai Marathon/INDIA 2025

Mumbai, 19 Jan. 2025: New champions emerged in the twentieth edition of the Tata Mumbai Marathon, a World Athletics Gold Label Road Race, as Eritrean Berhane Tesfay and Kenyan Joyce Chepkemoi Tele won the men’s and women’s categories, respectively.

The top three winners each took home prize money of USD 50,000, USD 25,000 and USD 15,000 respectively.

The winners were happy to celebrate their victories here for two reasons — Tesfay for his first-ever marathon triumph and Tele for her second successive win in three months in a marathon.

Six men, including defending champion Lemi Berhanu, ran together in a bunch in most parts
of the race. At the same time, pacer Timoty Kibet from Kenya pulled them to 27 km before
withdrawing at that stage. After the 30K, Kenyan Philemon Rono and Lemi exchanged the
lead briefly among themselves. After 35K, the runners realized that the event record was
slipping away. Hence, only the top-place finish matters in their mind.
Ethiopian Tesfaye Demeke, who finished ninth in the 2020 edition here, snatched the lead
when there were only 3 km left to finish. The other runners started chasing him. Both Rono
and Lemi started showing fatigue as two Eritreans, Berhane and Merhawi Kesete, increased
their tempo and ran ahead of Demeke in the waning stages of the race.

Berhane Tesfay crossed the finish line first in 2:11:44, with team-mate Kesete taking the
runner-up position six seconds later. Demeke completes the podium in 2:11:56.

Lemi, who logged back-to-back wins here in 2023-2024, finished sixth in a nondescript
2:14:54 and could not accomplish a hat trick of victories similar to Kenyan John Kelai, who
won in 2007-2008 and landed third place in 2009.

 

Kenyan Joyce Chepkemoi Tele – Photo: Procam International 

Tele became the third Kenyan woman to win in Mumbai:
Joyce Chepkemoi Tele (29) registered her second straight marathon victory in three
months. Having won her maiden race in Ljubljana City Marathon in Slovakia last October
in 2:20:17, the Kenyan runner was expected to return a better timing than the event record
of 2:24:15 stands in the name of Anchialem Haymanot since 2023.

With defending champion Aberash Minsewo from Ethiopia and the pre-race favourite
Shitaye Eshete (Bahrain) also in the race for the top prize, the women runners were
expected to take a course record bonus this time.

However, Tele was left to challenge herself as Eshete and others left the fray at 27K and
put the Kenyan to run a solo race. With a pacer taking her through the second part of the
race, Tele completes the race in 2:24:56, about 41 seconds slower than the record.
Eshete was on the silver spot at 2:25:29, while Ethiopia’s Medina Deme Armino, last year’s
Hong Kong marathon champion, claimed the bronze (2:27:58).

Tele became the third Kenyan woman runner to win in Mumbai after Valentine Kipketer
(2013) and Bornus Kitur (2017).

„I came here only to win the race and was not thinking about any record“, Tele told in the
post-event press conference.

Eshete said she was happy about her performance today and would like to come again for
better results.

Following are the Provisional results:
MARATHON ELITE MALE
RANK NAME COUNTRY TIME
1 BERHANE TESFAY ERITREA 02:11:44
2 MERHAWI KESETE ERITREA 02:11:50
3 TESFAYE DEMEKE ETHIOPIA 02:11:56
4 PHILEMON RONO KENYA 02:12:09
5 ABDI FUFA ETHIOPIA 02:12:48
6 LEMI BERHANU ETHIOPIA 02:14:54
7 ANISH THAPA INDIA 02:17:23
8 MAN SINGH INDIA 02:17:37
9 KEMAL HUSEN ETHIOPIA 02:17:37
10 ASRAR HIYRDEN ETHIOPIA 02:18:31

MARATHON ELITE MALE INDIAN
RANK NAME TIME
1 ANISH THAPA 02:17:23
2 MAN SINGH 02:17:37
3 GOPI THONAKAL 02:19:59
4 KALIDAS HIRAVE 02:20:28
5 SRINU BUGATHA 02:20:43
6 PRADEEP SINGHCHAUDHARY 02:22:24
7 DEV SINGH DAGAR 02:25:59
8 LATE CHANGDEV 02:26:24
9 PRATHAMESH PARAMKAR 02:28:41
10 ANANT GAONKAR 02:29:14

MARATHON ELITE WOMEN
RANK NAME COUNTRY TIME
1 JOYCE CHEPKEMOI TELE KENYA 02:24:56
2 SHITAYE ESHETE BAHRAIN 02:25:29
3 MEDINA DEMEARMINO ETHIOPIA 02:27:58
4 NIGSTI HAFTU ETHIOPIA 02:28:29
5 SHEWARGE ALENE ETHIOPIA 02:29:34
6 AAMELMAL TAGEL ETHIOPIA 02:29:37
7 ABERASH DEMISSE ETHIOPIA 02:29:53
8 TIGST GETNET ETHIOPIA 02:33:00
9 BIRTUKAN ABERA ETHIOPIA 02:33;55
10 ENYISH MENGIE ETHIOPIA 02:34:13

MARATHON ELITE WOMEN INDIAN
RANK NAME TIME
1 NIRMABEN THAKOR 02:50:06
2 SONIKA PARMAR 03:50:55
3 SONAM 03:55:45
4 KM LAXMI 03:58:49
5 BHAGIRATHI BISHT 03:58:52
9 SEEMA 03:10:40
10 JYOTI GAWATE 03:11:09

HALF MARATHON MEN:
RANK NAME TIME
1 SAWAN BARWAL 01:04:37
2 HARMANJOT SINGH 01:06:03
3 KARTIK KARKERA 01:07:20

HALF MARATHON WOMEN:
RANK NAME TIME
1 STANZIN DOLKAR 01:25:51
2 SKARMA IDONG LANZE 01:27:03
3 TASHI LADOL 01:29:30

ABOUT PROCAM INTERNATIONAL
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Marathon, Vedanta Delhi Half Marathon, Tata Consultancy Services World 10K and Tata Steel World
25K Kolkata— are global leaders in their respective distances. They have ushered in a running
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country. website: https://procam.in

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Ram. Murali Krishnan – Running India News Service