More than 300,000 spectators flocked to the barricades along Boylston Street to cheer on nearly 32,000 runners and wheelchair cyclists during the 129th Boston Marathon on April 21.
Paul Revere was one of the first to cross the finish line (on horseback), a nod to the 250th anniversary of Revere’s Midnight Ride this past Sunday and the beginning of the Revolutionary War, during which the U.S. won its independence from Great Britain.
Shortly after Revere came this year’s grand marshals, Bill Rodgers and Bob Hall, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of their respective races in 1975. Rodgers won the 1975 men’s race, and Hall became the first official wheelchair racer to compete in a Boston Marathon that same year.
Coming in first for the men’s wheelchair division this year (for the eighth time) was Swiss racer Marcel Hug. “The Silver Bullet” pulled out his third consecutive victory in 1:21:34.
After Hug, American Susannah Scaroni took gold for the women’s wheelchair division with a time of 1:35:20. This was her second Boston win, the previous being in 2023.
For the men’s open division, John Korir of Kenya ran the second-fastest Boston winning time in history, finishing with 2:04:45. Korir followed in his brother Wesley’s footsteps, who won the marathon in 2012; they are the first pair of brothers to win the Boston Marathon.
On the women’s elite side, Kenya’s Sharon Lokedi also made history. She crushed the previous course record of 2:19:59 by over two minutes, set in 2014 by Buzunesh Deba of Ethiopia, running a 2:17:22.
Before the race, notable American marathoner Des Linden announced her retirement following her completion of Boston that day. It was a fitting end to her professional marathoning career, as Linden’s first was Boston’s 2007 race, and she won Boston in 2018—the first American woman to achieve that feat in 33 years. Linden finished with a time of 2:26:19, her fastest time at Boston since 2017.
Spectators from Emerson may have seen a familiar face among the crowd of marathoners. Junior theatre and performance major Yasmin Defne Dadikhi ran her first Boston Marathon this year, finishing with an impressive sub-three-hour time of 2:54:56.
“This was my first big marathon,” Dadikhi said in an interview with The Beacon. “The experience was unmatched, truly.”
Dadikhi qualified for Boston by running her first marathon last August. However, she faced a unique challenge while training, due to her involvement with Emerson’s cross-country and track teams.
“[Training] was right between my indoor and outdoor season, so I didn’t have a lot of time to do long runs,” she said. “I tried to keep the mileage up and have a lot of speed workouts going on, but I only did like three big long runs, which is not a lot for a marathon.”
Along with track workouts, Dadikhi’s busy schedule is full of rehearsals as a T&P major. But, the two disciplines tend to complement each other.
“Mentally, [running] is a good break from acting,” she said. “It gives my days structure, it gives me purpose, it helps me push through challenges in other aspects of my life.”
Dadikhi enjoyed the camaraderie of the athletes’ village, where the buses dropped all of the runners before the start of the race.
“It was nice to chat and listen to other people’s training and their feelings,” she said. “It felt like a good break from my own mind.”
During the race, the people, the Boston-area crowds, also kept her going as she ran back toward Boylston. Just outside of Boston, Newton is known for Heartbreak Hill—a notoriously steep hill on the marathon course between miles 20 and 21—which concludes a series of rolling hills collectively known as the Newton Hills.
“The hills were really hard, but it was also the best crowd ever,” she said. “I loved it and I hated it.”
Another Emerson-connected runner this year was Cristian Popa, husband of Andrea Popa, director of the Office of International Student Affairs (OISA). He ran his thirteenth Boston Marathon this year in 3:07:55.
“It’s an amazing feat to do it once, but it’s just as impressive to keep going back at it and keep putting the miles and the time in,” Andrea Popa said in an interview with The Beacon.
Popa said her husband also loves the people aspect of the sport and this race in particular.
“For him, running is always a community thing,” she said. “He runs with Cambridge Running Club, and having that support is super important.”
“We had a big Emerson crowd there this year—my daughter’s a recent grad from Emerson and we had current students and alums as well cheering him on,” she added.
Popa’s husband’s first race was in 2013, the year of the bombing, so the Boston Marathon means everything to him.
“He finished before the bombs, so we have a picture right in front of bomb site two, which was just like ten minutes before the bombs went off,” she said. “It was just such a shift of emotions and such a cloud on the day.”
Popa returned in 2014 to run the marathon again, emboldened by the community support of the city.
“He’s a trail racer, but there’s something about Boson that kind of always pulls him back,” she said. “I mean who wasn’t gonna do it after that 2013 year? There was the Boston Strong pride, but there was also a lot more hassle—it kind of had the cloud of like ‘what could go wrong?’”
This year’s marathon fell nearly a week after the twelfth anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing. One of the victims of the tragedy was Martin Richard, an 8-year-old boy from Dorchester. Beginning in 2022, Martin’s brother, Henry, has run the marathon in honor of his late brother.
As Henry approached the corner of Commonwealth Avenue and Hereford Street, he was met with a loud ovation. Upon crossing the finish line, he was greeted by his family and Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey offered words of congratulations and support.
When Dadikhi approached the 24 mile marker of the marathon, she entered the city of Boston after a grueling race through Hopkinton, Ashland, Framingham, Narick, Wellesley, Newton, and Brookline.
“One of the simple [signs] that really hit home was ‘Welcome to Boston,’” Dadikhi said. “That felt like such a full circle moment.”
