2012 Boston Marathon

2012 Boston Marathon
Kenyan Wesley Korir celebrates his victory in the men's race
Venue	Boston, Massachusetts
Dates	April 16
← 2011 2013 →

The 2012 Boston Marathon took place in Boston, Massachusetts on Monday April 16, 2012. It was the 116th edition of the mass-participation marathon. Organized by the Boston Athletic Association, it was the first of the World Marathon Majors series to be held in 2012. A total of 22,426 runners started the race. The competition was held in hot running conditions, reaching 88 degrees Fahrenheit (31° Celsius) that afternoon, and some of the 27,000 registered runners opted to take up the organizers' offer to defer their entry until the 2013 race.

Wesley Korir and Sharon Cherop won the elite men's and women's races respectively. Josh Cassidy and Shirley Reilly were the winners of the wheelchair racing section. In the masters section, Uli Steidl won the men's marathon and Svetlana Pretot (ninth overall) was the women's champion.

The champions from 2011, Geoffrey Mutai and Caroline Kilel, announced their intentions to try to defend their titles at the start of the year. A large number of fast elite runners were invited to compete at the event, most of them being Ethiopian or Kenyan. Mutai was the pre-race favourite, with his two most prominent rivals being 2010 Boston winner Robert Kiprono Cheruiyot and 2010 New York City Marathon champion Gebre Gebremariam. Levy Matebo and Wilson Chebet were the other fastest runners, who entered the competition with personal bests under two hours and six minutes. Defending women's champion Kilel was not the fastest entrant in her section: Russia's Galina Bogomolova and Ethiopians Aselefech Mergia and Mamitu Daska had better personal bests. Sharon Cherop (third at the 2011 race) and Firehiwot Dado (reigning New York champion) were also prominent competitors.