Berlin
Marathon

A Bakery, a Forest, 286 Runners

The race that owns the record books started about as far from them as a marathon can. On 13 October 1974, a West Berlin pastry chef named Horst Milde put 286 runners on a course through the Grunewald forest on the city's western edge — Germany's first mass-participation marathon. 244 of them finished: 234 men and 10 women. Günter Hallas won in 2:44:53, Jutta von Haase in 3:22:01, and nobody outside Berlin noticed. Milde stayed on as race director for three decades and built the thing methodically, edition by edition.

In 1981 the marathon left the forest for the city streets — still entirely inside West Berlin, because there was a wall in the way. That move changed its nature: from a runners' outing to a city-scale event, and eventually to the fastest ground in the sport.

Through the Gate

The race's defining morning had nothing to do with the clock. On 30 September 1990 — three days before German reunification became official — the Berlin Marathon ran through the Brandenburg Gate and into East Berlin for the first time. More than 25,000 runners crossed under the arches that had stood behind a wall for 28 years. Steve Moneghetti of Australia won in 2:08:16; the women's race went to Uta Pippig, an East German, in 2:28:37 — she later described getting goose bumps as she passed through the Gate into the half of the city she came from.

The course has kept that geography ever since: start and finish by the Tiergarten, the final few hundred metres carrying runners through the Brandenburg Gate. It is the rare big-city marathon where the emotional high point and the finish line are nearly the same place.

Anatomy of a Fast Course

Berlin's speed is engineered, but not artificially. The loop through the city climbs only about 73 metres in total across 42.195 km — no hill on the course is worth the name — and it runs on wide boulevards of smooth asphalt with long straights and sweeping corners, so the leaders almost never break rhythm. Late September brings cool, still mornings. Add the deepest pacemaking budgets in the sport, and the calendar's expectations do the rest: athletes come to Berlin specifically to run fast, which is itself part of why they do.

Nine Records on One Plumb Line

The men's ledger reads like a house style. Ronaldo da Costa opened it in 1998, taking 45 seconds off a record that had stood for ten years and cartwheeling across the line. Then Paul Tergat's 2:04:55 in 2003 began the streak that made the race's name: for nineteen years, every men's marathon world record — all eight of them — was set in Berlin. Haile Gebrselassie broke it twice and became the first man under 2:04; Patrick Makau, Wilson Kipsang and Dennis Kimetto each moved it on; Kimetto's 2:02:57 in 2014 was the first time under 2:03.

Eliud Kipchoge finished the job. His 2:01:39 in 2018 removed 78 seconds at a stroke — the biggest single improvement in the men's record since 1967 — and his 2:01:09 four years later is still the fastest marathon ever run in this city. Berlin is also where he became the race's most decorated champion: five wins, in 2015, 2017, 2018, 2022 and 2023, one clear of Gebrselassie's four straight from 2006 to 2009.

The Women's Ledger Started Here First

Before any man set a world record in Berlin, a woman had. Christa Vahlensieck's 2:34:48 in 1977 — three years into the race's existence — was the course's first, run when the women's marathon was still fighting for a place on the Olympic programme. Tegla Loroupe trimmed her own record to 2:20:43 here in 1999, and in 2001 Naoko Takahashi, the reigning Olympic champion, ran 2:19:46 to become the first woman inside 2:20.

The fourth women's record was the loudest. Tigst Assefa's 2:11:53 in 2023 took more than two minutes off the world record and stood as the outright mark until Chicago 2024; it remains the Berlin course record. Between those bookends the race pulled in every generation's fastest — Paula Radcliffe, whose own 2:15:25 from London ruled the books for sixteen years, raced here in 2011 — because Berlin in late September is simply where quick times live.

Life After the Record

The crown left town in October 2023, when Kelvin Kiptum ran 2:00:35 in Chicago — the first men's record set outside Berlin since 2002. Kiptum died in a road accident four months later, at 24, and the mark is remembered together with the man. Then London finished what Berlin had spent two decades setting up: on 26 April 2026, Sabastian Sawe ran 1:59:30, the first sub-two-hour marathon ever ratified in open competition.

Berlin's reply is on the calendar rather than in the record book. Sawe himself won here in September 2025, in 2:02:16, after passing halfway inside record pace before the heat closed in; Rosemary Wanjiru took the women's race in 2:21:05. The 2024 edition — the 50th — went to Milkesa Mengesha in 2:03:17 and Tigist Ketema in 2:16:42. The 52nd edition runs on 27 September 2026, and whether the plumb line grows a tenth Berlin mark is the one thing this page will not guess at.

Sponsor Kit, Not Federation Kit

One reading rule matters to what we do at Elite Athletics Clothes: Berlin is a World Marathon Major, not a championship, so nobody on the start line wears national colours. Every record on this page was run in sponsor kit. The race itself is an adidas event — the brand is the marathon's official partner and produces its official collection each year — and Sawe, an adidas athlete, won the 2025 edition in the three stripes. Kipchoge ran his five Berlin wins inside the Nike-supplied NN Running Team setup, and both of his world records in Nike race kit.

Sponsor kit · in the archiveAdidas Pro Elite Team 2023 Women Capri Long TightsTeam-issue kit from the adidas line — the brand on the Berlin start banner, on the race's official collection, and on Sabastian Sawe when he won here in 2025.140,00 €View piece →

That is why this page points at the brand shelves rather than at any national rail. The lines those Berlin crews wear have their own stories in the journal — adidas Pro Elite and Nike Pro Elite first among them — and the rail below holds one athlete-issued piece from each of the eight sponsor and team lines in the archive.