The evening after the 1988 Boston Marathon, Honolulu Marathon president Jim Barahal and I flagged a cab at the Copley Plaza Hotel down to the old Boston Garden on Atlantic Avenue for the Celtics vs Detroit Pistons NBA basketball game. There, beneath the hulking elevated tracks of the MBTA Green Line trolley, we angled a couple of tickets from a scalper working the cross current polyglot of pre-game activity. 

Though Jim was a Detroit native and University of Michigan grad, it wasn’t a trip down memory lane that drew us to the Gahden that evening.

The day before, the three-time Honolulu Marathon champion—and close Barahal friend—Ibrahim Hussein of Kenya had out-kicked the great Tanzanian runner, Juma Ikangaa, in the final 100 meters of the 92nd Boston Marathon. Hussein’s thrilling one-second margin of victory, 2:08:43 to 2:08:44, was the smallest in the event’s long history till then, and elevated the personable University of New Mexico graduate to historic status as the first-ever African champion in Boston. He had engineered a similar result the previous fall with his win at the New York City Marathon.

That April night at the Boston Garden, Hussein and Ikangaa sat as guests of marathon sponsor John Hancock Financial Services in the company’s luxury box high above courtside. Barahal and I watched from across the famous parquet floor, closer to ground level. 

At halftime, with the Celtics leading 61-47, the PA announcer introduced the two tiny Africans to the crowd as both Ibrahim and Juma walked out to center court. The difference in stature between the pro basketball players and the two world-class distance runners was starkly, almost comically, clear. Yet such was the crowd’s appreciation of the marathon, that the 14,000+ Celtics’ fans stood in unison to salute the two runners for the show they had put on the day before. 

It was from that Boston Marathon in 1988, 37 years ago, that it became axiomatic to have an East African champion at the major marathons of the world.

Since then, only four male runners not from East Africa have prevailed in Boston:

• Yuki Kawauchi (Japan): Won in near hurricane conditions in 2018 with a time of 2:15:58

• Meb Keflezighi (USA): Won in the post-finish line bombing year of 2014 with a time of 2:08:37

• Lee Bong-Ju (South Korea): Won in 2001 with a time of 2:09:43

• Gelindo Bordin (Italy): Won in 1990 with a time of 2:08:19, becoming the only man to win both an Olympic Marathon gold medal and Boston Marathon diamond-chip winner’s medal.

The first African woman to win the Boston Marathon was Ethiopia’s Fatuma Roba in 1997. Her victory in Boston ‘97 followed her Olympic win in Atlanta the year before. By winning Boston, she joined Maine’s Joan Samuelson and Portugal’s Rosa Mota as the only women to have earned both an Olympic and Boston Marathon title. 

Roba’s 1997 victory in Boston marked another significant milestone. She became the second woman in the official era—beginning in 1972—to win the race three consecutive years, 1997-1999. Germany’s Ute Pippig preceded Roba with a three-peat from 1994 to 1996. 

In total, Ethiopian women have won the Boston Marathon 6 times, and Kenyan women have won 9 times since 1997, led by Catherine Ndereba’s four titles in 2000, 2001, 2004, and 2005.

Kenya’s Hellen Obiri won her second consecutive Boston Marathon women’s division in 2024, besting countrywoman Sharon Lokedi (2nd, 2:22:45) by just 8 seconds.

The only non-African women to have won Boston since 1997 are:

• Des Linden (USA): 2018 (2:39:54)

• Lidiya Grigoryeva (Russia): 2007 (2:29:18)

• Svetlana Zakharova (Russia): 2003 (2:25:19)

Hellen Obiri will go for her own three-peat one week from this coming Monday, with Sharon Lokedi once again leading the opposition.

Ethiopia’s Sisay Lemma will go for a repeat on the men’s side. He will be challenged by 2022-2023 champ Evans Chebet and 2024 Chicago Marathon champion, John Korir (2:02:44), who will look to repeat his older brother Wesley‘s victory from 2012. It has all the makings of a classic day on the old route.

I’m not sure if the new marathon sponsor, Bank of America, has a skybox at TD Garden. I do know the Celtics begin the defense of their 2024 NBA title Marathon Monday against either the Atlanta Hawks or the Orlando Magic, depending which one comes out of the Play-in Tournament this coming week. Oh, in the game we went to back in 1988, the Celtics beat the Pistons, 121-110, led by Kevin McHale’s 33 points.

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