2026 Cape Town Marathon Women’s Results: Dera Dida Wins in 2:23:18 as Ethiopia Sweeps the Podium

The 2026 Sanlam Cape Town Marathon’s women’s race finished in 2:23:18, 56 seconds outside the women’s course record of 2:22:22 set by Glenrose Xaba in 2024, and behind one of the more dramatic individual collapses the race has ever produced.

Dera Dida Yami of Ethiopia crossed the line first in 2:23:18, 28 seconds ahead of compatriot Mestawut Fikir in 2:23:46, with Waganesh Amare completing an Ethiopian sweep of the podium in 2:23:57.

The result was overshadowed by what happened in the closing 2.2 kilometres. Ewnetie Dagnaw, the 24-year-old Ethiopian who had led every checkpoint of the race from 5K through 35K and was equal on time with Yami at the 40K mark, did not finish. The collapse, somewhere between the final inland turn through Mouille Point and the Vlei Road finish line, turned what had been shaping up as a straight Yami-Dagnaw sprint finish into a solo coronation, and removed one of the most consistent front-running performances of the day from the result sheet entirely.

It was the men’s race in reverse. Where the men’s field produced a course-record-smashing surprise winner from outside the top tier of pre-race favourites, the women’s race produced a top three of mostly pre-race-favourite athletes, but a podium that, on the morning, had to assemble itself around the most dramatic single moment of the day.

How the Race Unfolded

The opening 5K went out at 3:26/km, with Ewnetie Dagnaw leading a lead pack of eleven through in 17:13. Dera Dida Yami, Edna Kiplagat, Emebet Mamo, Mercy Kwambai, Vibian Chepkirui and Mestawut Fikir were all within a second. The 47-year-old Kiplagat, the two-time World Marathon Champion and 2017 Boston winner whose presence in the front pack was, by any standard of elite marathoning, statistically improbable, was already announcing herself as a top-5 candidate.

Through 10K (34:39) the pace settled to 3:29/km. The lead pack stayed at eleven. Yami led on the line; Dagnaw was equal on time at 34:39 alongside Leah Cheruto and Vibian Chepkirui.

Halfway (21.1K) was hit in 1:12:33, a half split that projected to roughly 2:25:06, slower than the course record but still inside the top dozen women’s marathon times of the 2026 calendar. Dagnaw and Yami shared the front. Cheruto, Fikir, Enyew and Mamo were a second back. Kiplagat, still in the front pack at 1:12:35, was holding a pace that 47-year-olds in elite marathon racing simply do not hold.

Between halfway and 30K the pace dropped to 3:25/km. The lead pack thinned to seven. Cheruto moved to the front through 30K in 1:43:03, with Yami, Dagnaw, Enyew, Fikir and Amare within two seconds. Kiplagat was 7 seconds back, slowly losing the contact with the front group she had held for the previous 30 kilometres.

At 35K, the front group’s lead grew over the chase. Dagnaw led through in 2:00:10, with Yami, Fikir, Amare and Cheruto inside two seconds. Kiplagat, at 2:00:26, was 16 seconds back but still in serious top-5 contention. Mokonin was 3:11 down — the chase group had broken apart.

The decisive surge came between 35K and 40K. The front pack ran the 5K split in 16:00, a 3:12/km pace that left only four athletes still in contact with the lead. Yami and Dagnaw crossed 40K together in 2:16:11. Fikir was 8 seconds back. Amare was at 2:16:27. Cheruto, who had led through 30K, had drifted to 39 seconds back at 2:16:50. The race for the win had narrowed to a two-woman sprint between Yami and Dagnaw, with the final 2.195 kilometres along the inland turn through Mouille Point and into Vlei Road.

The Final 2.2 Kilometres

Then Dagnaw went.

Reports from the closing two kilometres remain in flux at the time of writing, and we will update this piece as more detail filters in. What is confirmed: the Ethiopian 24-year-old who had led the race at every checkpoint from 5K through 35K, and was on Yami’s shoulder at the 40K mat, did not cross the Vlei Road finish line in any of the published top-ten positions. Whether Dagnaw stopped on the promenade, slowed dramatically into the chase positions outside the top ten, or pulled off the course entirely is not yet clear. The result, in any case, is the same: the four-second lead group at kilometre 40 became a one-woman race over the closing two-and-a-bit kilometres.

Yami crossed the line in 2:23:18. Her closing 2.195 kilometres ran at roughly 3:14/km, a steady, un-spectacular finish that did not need to be spectacular because nobody was chasing her. It is her first major-level marathon win, and her slowest marathon since 2024, but on the day, the only one that mattered.

Mestawut Fikir crossed in 2:23:46 for second, 28 seconds back. Fikir, whose entry-list pedigree had pointed to a top-three result, delivered the kind of consistent racing the front-pack pre-race form chart suggested.

Waganesh Amare crossed in 2:23:57 for third, 11 seconds behind Fikir. Amare had been the quiet member of the lead pack all morning, sitting between fifth and ninth at every checkpoint from 5K to 30K, then climbing into the podium positions as the closing surges broke the chase apart. Her Amsterdam 2025 PB of 2:20:26 had not pointed to a sure podium; her execution did.

Edna Kiplagat at 47

Edna Kiplagat finished fifth in 2:25:44.

The 47-year-old Kenyan, a two-time World Marathon Champion (2011, 2013), 2017 Boston winner, and the oldest woman ever to finish on a major international marathon podium, sat in the lead pack for 30 kilometres, lost contact with the front gradually through the climbing section, and held a top-5 position through the closing 12 kilometres against a field of athletes more than two decades younger than her. Her closing pace of 3:30/km is competitive at any age. At 47, it is, on the strict measure of age-graded performance, one of the more remarkable individual results in elite marathon history.

If Kiplagat retires from elite marathoning in the next twelve months, Sunday’s run will be her finishing-line note. If she does not, her continued presence in the global top 10 at this age is the kind of biological outlier that the sport rarely produces.

Podium and Top 10