Lyndsay Tessier 9th in IAAF World Championship Marathon
Lyndsay Tessier, on her first-ever Canadian team, finishes in the top 10 and runs Olympic standard equivalent
The women’s World Championship marathon was essentially a war of attrition. It was over 40 degrees celsius, there were sponge stations every few kilometres and women were dropping quickly as the marathon progressed. Canadian Lyndsay Tessier, who was running in her first-ever World Championships at age 41, managed to pull off a top ten finish in unprecedented World Championship marathon conditions. The runner started off conservatively and slowly made her way up from 30th to 9th over the course of 42.2K.
The top 10 finishers at the World Championships achieve an Olympic standard equivalency, placing Tessier in serious contention for the Tokyo 2020 team. Fellow Canadian Melanie Myrand also ran extremely well, finishing 27th in 2:57:40.
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Runners knew that their midnight marathon was going to be hot, but based on the number of DNF’s, no one knew just how hot it would feel. Before the halfway point, all three Ethiopians had dropped out including Ruti Aga, the 2019 Tokyo Marathon champion. Of the 68 starters, nearly half of the field did not finish.
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Canadian Sasha Gollish dropped just before 25K due to extreme heat exhaustion. Team physiologist Trent Stellingwerff tweeted that she is alright, just overheated.
Dear Canadian fans – @SGollishRuns is ok – DNF with extreme heat stress but now all good . @rolmiller
— Trent Stellingwerff (@TStellingwerff) September 27, 2019
The winner was Ruth Chepngetich of Kenya 2:32:43, second place went to Rose Chelimo of Bahrain in 2:33:46 and third place to Helalia Johannes of Namibia 2:34:51.
Full results can be found here.
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