DOHA, Qatar – As Kenyan Ruth Chepngetich approached the final stretch of the women’s marathon on Saturday morning, an ambulance transported another exhausted runner through the finish line to the medical center. Of the 68 athletes who started the race, only 40 finished due to the heat and humidity.
The temperature when the race started was 91 degrees Fahrenheit, and the humidity was 73.3-percent humidity.
Despite the arduous conditions, Chepngetich won the IAAF World Track and Field Championships marathon with a time of 2 hours, 32 minutes, 43 seconds, just over a minute ahead of Rose Chelimo, the defending world champion from Bahrain.
Chepngetich entered the race as the favorite; she had run the third fastest time in history, 2:17.08, in Dubai in January.
Not even the winner was safe from the heat exhaustion, though. During an interview, Chepngetich stumbled back and used the media backdrop to prevent herself from falling. An IAAF official quickly helped her to the nearby medical tent, which was already full of other marathoners struggling to cope with the heat.
“I only used water,” she said. “I forced myself to drink it and also used the sponge to help make me cooler.”
Chelimo placed second in 2:33:46. She also left the mixed zone early to go to the medical tent.
“It was still very hot and at one point it came into my mind to stop,” she said. “But I kept going and prayed that I could finish the race.”
The Wet Bulb Globe Temperature, the recognized international standard for measuring heat, humidity and thermal stress conditions, was 29.5 degrees Celsius at midnight when the race began. According to an IAAF press release, it needed to be between 28 and 30.9 degrees for the race to go ahead as planned.
Because the conditions were still hot and humid, the IAAF increased the refreshment points along the course and deployed extra medical personnel. Nonetheless, 28 athletes dropped out of the race.
An hour in, at least four marathoners had dropped.
Ruti Aga of Ethiopia, who held the second-fastest PR among the competitors, stopped running before the halfway mark. She ran one marathon prior to Doha but is set to run the New York City marathon at the start of November, a quick five-week turnaround between races.
Even with the heat, Helaria Johannes of Namibia made history with her third-place finish in 2:34:15. Her bronze medal is the first medal at a world championship by a Namibian woman.
