Ruth Chepngetich Shatters Women's Marathon Record

With a decisive showing at the T20 World Cup, the Indian cricket team ended their 13-year wait for an ICC trophy; but beyond that, red-ball success remained elusive

- Somshuvra Laha

Kenyan athlete breaking a distance-running world record is not exactly surprising, but when the running record is shattered by almost two minutes - 1 minute 57 seconds - it does call for attention. That's what Ruth Chepngetich did in Chicago this October, shaving a massive 4mins 22secs from her personal best, and producing a moment that's compared to the moon landing. The sub 2hr 10min marathon by a woman broke new ground for female athletes and the sport in general, considering the previous record of Ethiopian Tigst Assefa (2:11:53) that stood for barely a year. Chepngetich's mark is the third new women's world record in three years, with the fastest women's time in marathon dropping by five-and-half-minutes in that period. Chepngetich dedicated her win to fellow Kenyan Kelvin Kiptum, who broke the men's world record a year earlier in Chicago and died in a car crash four months later.

In the 13 years, two months and 26 days since April 2, 2011, India's relationship with the cricket World Cup had become a one-way street of unrequited love. The Champions Trophy 2013 was a much-celebrated follow-up of the ODI World Cup win but the absurdly high count of near-misses thereafter injected a strain of nervous uncertainty whenever India were in the knockouts. The last straw came on November 19, 2023 at the Narendra Modi Stadium when Australia silenced India in front of 100,000 boisterous fans. In the final of an ODI World Cup where India simply looked unbeatable, that defeat was probably the hardest to swallow.