Agnes Jebet wins Tokyo Half Marathon in new course record

By  Bernard Rotich

Reporter

NMG Sport

What you need to know:

• Kenya's Agnes Jebet Ngetich ran a solo race, crossing the line in 1:04:23 to erase the previous Tokyo Half Marathon course record.
• Ngetich won the World Athletics Road Running Championships Half Marathon in a women-only world record last month in Copenhagen.

Kenya's Agnes Jebet Ngetich underlined her status as the world's best road runner with a dominant course record victory at the Tokyo Half Marathon on Sunday.

Fresh from winning the World Athletics Road Running Championships Half Marathon title last month in Copenhagen, Ngetich ran a solo race, crossing the line in 1:04:23 to erase the previous Tokyo Half Marathon course record.

The 25-year-old from Iten in Elgeyo Marakwet County was in a class of her own. She broke away from the field before the five kilometre mark and extended her lead with every kilometre, running alone against the clock through the streets of Tokyo.

Her winning time was almost four minutes clear of her nearest challenger, as her compatriot, Tabitha Kamau, came in second timing 1:08:28 while Japan's Kanatomo Rika sealed the final podium position in 1:10:17.

It was a continuation of what has been a near-perfect 2026 for Ngetich. Last month in Copenhagen, she won her first senior global title on the roads, taking the World Athletics Road Running Championships Half Marathon in a women-only world record of 1:05:15, beating fellow Kenyan, Veronica Loleo (1:06:05), and Rwanda's Florence Niyonkuru (1:06:08).

The win in Denmark came with the women's team title for Kenya.

Earlier in January, Ngetich started her season by winning the World Athletics Cross Country Championships in Tallahassee, Florida. That marked her first world cross country title.

Ngetich is no stranger to rewriting record books. In January 2024, she became the first woman to run under 29 minutes in a 10km race when she clocked 28:46 in Valencia — a world record that still stands.

She also holds the second-fastest women's half marathon time after clocking 1:03:04 run in Valencia in October 2024.

After finishing sixth in the 10,000m at the 2023 World Championships in Budapest and fourth at the 2025 World Championships in Tokyo she has bigger dreams.

“It is my dream to win a gold medal on the track, it is the only one I am missing,” she told World Athletics in an earlier interview.

In the men's race, Alexander Mutiso Munyao, the 2024 London Marathon champion, won to complete a Kenyan double in Tokyo. 

Mutiso, who finished fourth in the men's marathon at the Paris Olympics, used the half marathon as part of his build-up to the 2026 Tokyo Marathon defence.

The Tokyo Half Marathon, which is run on a loop around the Imperial Palace and through Shibuya, attracted over 15,000 runners.

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