Tanzania’s Alphonce Felix Simbu made history in Tokyo with a breathtaking victory in the men’s marathon at the 2025 World Athletics Championships, edging out Germany’s Amanal Petros by just 0.03 seconds — the narrowest margin ever recorded in a World Championships marathon. The 33 year old Tanzanian and Petros crossed into Japan’s National Stadium shoulder to shoulder after 42.2 km, both clocking 2:09:48. A dramatic photo finish confirmed Simbu’s desperate lunge at the line gave him the gold medal.
“It felt like a 100 meter sprint at the end,” Petros said afterward, marveling at how the race came down to fractions of a second after more than two hours of running. The victory is a landmark for Tanzania, marking the nation’s first ever gold medal at either the World Championships or the Olympics. “It is amazing to me. I made history today for my country,” Simbu said, smiling as he draped himself in the Tanzanian flag.
The margin of victory was even slimmer than in the men’s and women’s 100-meter finals held the night before highlighting just how rare such a finish is in marathon racing. For Petros, it was heartbreak and triumph in equal measure, as he secured Germany’s first global marathon medal in decades. The bronze medal went to Ethiopia’s Chala Regasa, who finished in 2:10:12. World Athletics officials confirmed the finish will go down as one of the most dramatic in championship history proof that even the longest race can end in a split second showdown.
