Hawi Feysa defended her Chicago Marathon crown in 2:13:33 with Sharon Lokedi second and former world record holder Brigid Kosgei third in a historic sub-2:15 podium.
Picture by Jake Weinberg
A year ago, you watched a 25-year-old Ethiopian win her first World Marathon Major by more than two minutes, in only her second marathon.
A lot of people wondered whether it was a one-off, whether she was really the next great marathoner, or whether Chicago 2025 was simply the right day for her.
On Sunday, October 11, 2026, Hawi Feysa answered that question in the most direct way available to her.
She won the Bank of America Chicago Marathon again, in a faster time, against a deeper field, with two of the biggest names in the sport chasing her the whole way.
Her time: 2:13:33, a personal best by 56 seconds and the fastest Chicago women's time in two years.
The women's field was built around a three-way argument between the defending champion, a back-to-back Boston winner, and a former world record holder.
Feysa was the defending champion. Sharon Lokedi was the back-to-back Boston champion making her Chicago debut on a flat major course.
Brigid Kosgei was the former world record holder, two-time Chicago winner, and 2026 Tokyo Marathon champion returning to the city where she had set the women's world record in 2019.
For the first 25K, the three ran together, trading surges, letting the group thin itself.
Then Feysa made her move. The gap did not open all at once, it opened slowly, meter by meter, and by 35K it was decisive.
Lokedi fought every step of the way, closing the gap in the final two kilometers and finishing just 34 seconds behind. Kosgei, 32 years old and racing her first Chicago in seven years, held off everything else behind her for third.
• 1st: Hawi Feysa (ETH), 2:13:33 (PB)
• 2nd: Sharon Lokedi (KEN), 2:14:07
• 3rd: Brigid Kosgei (KEN), 2:14:55
Three women under 2:15 on the same day. That is a rare depth of result in women's marathoning, and it happened in Chicago for the first time this quickly in the race's history.
A year ago, Feysa won in 2:14:56. On Sunday, she won in 2:13:33, which is a 1 minute and 23 second improvement on the same course.
It is also the fastest women's time of her career, and it comes against her strongest field yet.
Winning Chicago 2025 was a breakthrough. Winning Chicago 2026 against this lineup is a different kind of statement.
She is now one of only a handful of women to successfully defend a Chicago Marathon title. She has done it at 26 years old, with a career that is clearly still trending up.
To understand how hard this one was, look at who she had to drop.
Sharon Lokedi arrived in Chicago having won back-to-back Boston Marathons in 2025 and 2026, with her second Boston title coming via a women's course record. She is 32 years old, in the best form of her career, and she picked Chicago specifically to race a flat major for the first time.
Brigid Kosgei, 32, was the former world record holder, with a 2:14:04 personal best from her dominant Chicago 2019 win. She came in off a course-record victory at the 2026 Tokyo Marathon that marked her return to top-level form.
Feysa beat both of them. Not by seconds, but by enough that there was no ambiguity about who ran the better race.
Picture by Candace Dane Chambers/Sun-Times
The women's race was supposed to be the better of the two Chicago contests, and it was.
The men's race produced a shock, with the defending champion dropping to fourth. The women's race produced a classic, with three of the sport's biggest names going to the line together and the fastest one winning.
Feysa now has two Chicago titles in two attempts, a personal best of 2:13:33, and a clear claim to being one of the two or three best women's marathoners in the world.
The Chicago women's course record of 2:09:56, set by Ruth Chepngetich in 2024, is still safe. It was never seriously under threat on Sunday because Chepngetich is currently serving a doping ban, and the field raced for the win rather than against the clock.
But if Feysa continues on her current trajectory, that record will be in play when she returns. A 1:24 personal-best improvement in a single year is the kind of progression that puts someone in sub-2:12 territory within one more cycle.
Three things worth carrying forward from this one.
First, Feysa is now a two-year, two-title answer to a question. The 2025 Chicago win was a surprise, but the 2026 defense against a stacked field settles the argument.
Second, Lokedi passed her flat-course test. She ran 2:14:07, a sharp improvement on her listed personal best, and the Chicago debut was a success in every way except the final kilometer.
Third, Kosgei is back. A 32-year-old former world record holder, in her first Chicago since her 2:14:04 win in 2019, running 2:14:55 for third against this field, is a signal that she has at least one more major title push left in her.
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Feysa now has two major titles, both in Chicago, both before her 27th birthday. New York in November becomes her next decision point if she chooses to race again this year.
For Lokedi, a second-place at a flat major with a four-minute improvement on her listed personal best is not a loss. It is a positioning move that opens up the entire 2027 major schedule for her.
For Kosgei, the podium return matters more than the gap. She is back among the top three in a World Marathon Major for the first time since 2023, and she is doing it on the course where she made her name.
Expect Feysa to pick a spring 2027 target carefully. Tokyo in March or London in April would both suit her, and either would give her a shot at the sub-2:12 time her improvement curve now suggests is possible.
Expect Lokedi to come back to Boston in April 2027 for a potential three-peat, and expect Kosgei to be in the mix for every major she enters from here.
And expect the women's Chicago field in 2027 to be, if anything, even deeper. Feysa has now made this her race.
For now, the title stays in Ethiopia for a second straight year. Hawi Feysa in 2:13:33, Sharon Lokedi in 2:14:07, Brigid Kosgei in 2:14:55, and a women's marathon that keeps raising its own standard.
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