Alex Eke­sa’s bid for a record-ex­tend­ing fifth con­sec­u­tive Run Bar­ba­dos marathon ti­tle came to a dis­tress­ing con­clu­sion on Sun­day morn­ing, with the Kenyan forced to aban­don the race due to in­jury.

In­stead, the race was won by Scot­land-based Ja­maican run­ner Ja­son Bak­er in a win­ning time of two hours, 46 min­utes, and 31 sec­onds. T&T’s Christo­pher Mitchell, who won Sat­ur­day’s 5K, was sec­ond in the marathon run in two hours, 51 min­utes, and 53 sec­onds, while third place went to Kenya’s Fed­er­ick Ngeno, who com­plet­ed the 26.2-mile jour­ney in three hours, 13 min­utes, and 22 sec­onds.

“It was great,” said Bak­er fol­low­ing the race. I’ve done three marathons this year in the UK, and my coach and I de­cid­ed from the get-go to be more con­ser­v­a­tive and see how it goes. The first bit was re­al­ly nice, but then it got a lit­tle hard­er.”

Asked about how he felt about Eke­sa drop­ping out, Bak­er said, “I couldn’t be­lieve it, but it gave me a bit of a spring in my step. Ob­vi­ous­ly, I feel sor­ry for the guy be­cause he was so far ahead, and I hope he’s al­right. But I knew I had a good lead on the guy be­hind me, so it gave me a chance to re­lax a lit­tle bit.”

Mitchell said the podi­um fin­ish was al­ways on his radar, but he al­so re­laxed once he found out that Eke­sa was no longer in the race.

“I on­ly found out around 18 miles in, but re­gard­less of that, I think I would have still fin­ished in the top three. I woke up this morn­ing un­sure which race I was go­ing to do, so I took a gam­ble, and it paid off,” he said.

Colom­bia’s Pal­me­nia Agude­lo Berrio con­tin­ued her own per­son­al streak of wins this week­end, adding the marathon ti­tle to her wins in the Fun Mile at The Gar­ri­son Sa­van­nah on Fri­day and the 10K on Sat­ur­day. Im­pres­sive­ly, Berrio was the third over­all fin­ish­er be­hind Bak­er and Mitchell, out­class­ing her fel­low fe­male com­peti­tors with a time of two hours, 55 min­utes, and 17 sec­onds.

Plac­ing sec­ond was Cana­di­an run­ner Gi­na Tran­qua­da in three hours, 13 min­utes, and 54 sec­onds, while the third over­all woman to cross the line was an­oth­er Colom­bian, Lil­iana Lozano, clock­ing three hours, 27 min­utes, and 02 sec­onds.

Ear­li­er, the win­ner of con­sec­u­tive Run Bar­ba­dos marathons in 2019, 2022, 2023, and 2024, Eke­sa was on course for the his­toric fifth in a row. Eke­sa held a com­pre­hen­sive ad­van­tage over the rest of the field by the mid­way stage; how­ev­er, with rough­ly six miles re­main­ing, he sud­den­ly stopped run­ning. When asked about his well-be­ing by an of­fi­cial on board a ve­hi­cle trans­port­ing me­dia per­son­nel, Eke­sa in­di­cat­ed that he could not con­tin­ue the race.

He lat­er ex­plained that his back was in pain and the dis­com­fort was caus­ing him to lose rhythm.

Eke­sa had to be trans­port­ed by the ve­hi­cle back to the fin­ish line, and he told Guardian Me­dia Sports that he did feel dis­com­fort be­fore the race but thought that ap­ply­ing ki­net­ic tape would pro­vide a greater de­gree of ease.

The soft-spo­ken Kenyan stat­ed gin­ger­ly, “Un­for­tu­nate­ly, this hap­pens some­times. But I am grate­ful to be here and to be alive.”

<Fran­cis claims half-marathon re­demp­tion>

Ear­li­er, 115 run­ners set out on the marathon dis­tance, along with 360 in a si­mul­ta­ne­ous start in the half-marathon.

Eke­sa was at the fore­front, set­ting the pace for those do­ing the short­er dis­tance. In the end, his at­tack­ing strat­e­gy was to the ben­e­fit of Colom­bian duo Ser­gio Lopez and Os­car Acos­ta, who placed first and sec­ond, while T&T’s Donell Fran­cis placed third.

Ac­cord­ing to Fran­cis, his bronze made up for less than ide­al out­comes in his pre­vi­ous out­ings over the three days of rac­ing, as he on­ly man­aged to fin­ish 5th in the Fun Mile on Fri­day and third in the 5K the fol­low­ing af­ter­noon.

Fran­cis said, “Af­ter com­ing off what I would say were slight­ly dis­ap­point­ing first two days, I re­al­ly re­grouped, re­fo­cused, and came back out here and did well for that half-marathon, so I am re­al­ly grate­ful and thank­ful for that.”

In the women’s race, de­fend­ing UWI SPEC Half Marathon cham­pi­on, T&T’s Aniqah Bai­ley, placed sec­ond with a time of one hour and 33 min­utes. She was sev­en min­utes adruft of the win­ner, Egris Ro­driguez of Venezuela, who clocked 1: 26. 06 sec­onds to take the ti­tle. Bar­ba­di­an Char­lie Robin­son fin­ished third 1:33.27 sec­onds.

<Ro­many records Run Bar­ba­dos 10K tre­ble>

De­spite be­ing un­able to re­gain the half-marathon, plac­ing fourth in 1:14.02, 2023 half-marathon win­ner Nicholas Ro­many did etch his name in­to Run Bar­ba­dos Marathon Week­end his­to­ry, win­ning a third con­sec­u­tive men’s 10K ti­tle on Sat­ur­day.

Ro­many man­aged to clock 31 min­utes, 20 sec­onds on a flat but windy course be­gin­ning and end­ing at Bay Street Es­planade, St Michael, Bar­ba­dos.

Ro­many’s time was al­most a minute faster than the 32:16 he record­ed last year when the race was held in the east­ern coastal parish of St An­drew. His win­ning time in 2023 was 32:55.

On each of his pre­vi­ous two wins, Ro­many man­aged to nar­row­ly edge out Eke­sa, who clocked 32:58 in 2023 and 32:18 in 2024. On Sat­ur­day, Eke­sa again saw the back of the Trinida­di­an, cross­ing the fin­ish line just two sec­onds slow­er than Ro­many at 31:22. Venezuela’s Ser­gio Lopez clocked 31:27, plac­ing third.

The women’s race was dom­i­nat­ed by Pal­me­nia Berrio, who won in 37:20, ahead of Pana­ma’s Anais Al­vara­do in sec­ond po­si­tion in 43:20. Bar­ba­dos’ Katielynn Park­er placed third in 43:45. T&T’s first fe­male fin­ish­er was Natasha Ali, who was 18th among the women and 61st over­all in 54:22.

Sat­ur­day’s win marked Ro­many’s sec­ond three-peat at the pop­u­lar three-day road run­ning fes­ti­val. On Fri­day, he al­so notched his third con­sec­u­tive vic­to­ry in the Fun Mile at the Gar­ri­son Sa­van­nah.

“I love Bar­ba­dos; it feels like home,” he said, speak­ing af­ter his win­ing run.

“This year’s course was much eas­i­er than last year, but the com­pe­ti­tion was much tougher this year, so I still had to run hard. This is the hard­est I have ever run. Run­ning in­to the wind and try­ing to keep up the pace was dif­fi­cult. I used a lot more en­er­gy, but it’s all part of com­pe­ti­tion, all part of rac­ing.”

This year’s race­course pro­ceed­ed along the Bay Street Es­planade be­fore con­nect­ing on­to the Princess Al­ice High­way, Prescod Boule­vard, and Mighty Grin­ner High­way and then to the turn­ing point out­side the Braven Mar­ket be­fore head­ing in the re­verse di­rec­tion to the start/fin­ish line. 5K run­ners did half of that dis­tance, turn­ing at the Pel­i­can Ho­tel in Bridgetown.

2025 Run Bar­ba­dos Marathon

and Well­ness Week­end Re­sults

Far­ley Hill Marathon

Men’s Open

1. Ja­son Bak­er (JAM) - 2:46.31

2. Christo­pher Mitchell (T&T) - 2:51.53

3. Fred­er­ick Ngeno (KEN) - 3:13.22

4. Marc DeCham­plain (CAN) - 3:21:51

5. Oein Josi­ah (BAR) - 3:23.02

Far­ley Hill Marathon

Women’s Open

1. Pal­me­nia Berrio (COL) - 2:55.17

2. Gi­na Tran­qua­da (CAN) - 3:13.54

3. Lil­ian Lozano (COL) - 3:27.02

4. Julie Dit­ta (CAN) - 3:29.27

5. Julie Sed­don (GBR) - 3:49.18

Sand Dunes Half-Marathon

Men’s Open

1. Ser­gio Lopez (COL) - 1:11.31

2. Os­car Acos­ta (COL) - 1:11.56

3. Don­nell Fran­cis (T&T) - 1:13.12

4. Nicholas Ro­many (T&T) - 1:14.02

5. Bladimir Ojo (PAN) - 1:15.20

Sand Dunes Half-Marathon

Women’s Open

1. Egris Ro­driguez (VEN) - 1:26.06

2. Aniqah Bai­ley (T&T) - 1:33.00

3. Car­lie Robin­son (BAR) - 1:33.27

4. Alex­ia John (T&T) - 1:34.32

5. Anais Al­vara­do (PAN) - 1:35.50

PwC Fun Mile

Men’s Open

1. Nicholas Ro­many (T&T) - 04:22

2. Chtisto­pher Mitchell (T&T) - 4:27

3. Mark Lon­don (T&T) - 3:31

4. Alex Eke­sa (KEN) - 4:33

5. Don­nell Fran­cis (T&T) - 4:34

PwC Fun Mile

Women’s Open

1. Pal­me­nia Berrio (COL) - 5:04

2. Aniqah Bai­ley (T&T) - 5:12

3. Egris Ro­driguez (VEN) - 5:25

4. Alex­ia John (T&T) 5:32

5. Ash­lyn Sim­mons (BAR) - 5:37

Sleep­ing Gi­ant 5K

Men’s Open

1. Christo­pher Mitchell (T&T) - 15:28

2. Os­car Acos­ta (COL) - 15:32

3. Don­nell Fran­cis (T&T) - 15:49

4. Luke McIn­tyre (BAR) - 16:11

5. Bladimir Ojo (PAN) - 16:33

Sleep­ing Gi­ant 5K

Women’s Open

1. Egris Ro­driguez (VEN) - 18:35

2. Laila McIn­tyre (BAR) - 18:56

3. Alex­ia John (T&T) - 19:14

4. Lashay Wilkin­son (BAR) - 19:29

5. Lil­iana Lozano (COL) - 19:34

Ca­suahi­na 10K

Men’s Open

1. Nicholas Ro­many (T&T) - 31:20

2. Alex Eke­sa (KEN) - 31:22

3. Ser­gio Lopez (COL) - 32:27

4. Joshua Hunte (BAR) - 36:17

5. Shamel May­nard (BAR) - 39:17

Ca­suahi­na 10K

Women’s Open

1. Pal­me­nia Berrio (COL) - 37:02

2. Anais Al­vara­do (PAN) - 43:20

3. Katielynn Park­er (BAR) - 43:45

4. Faith Lorde (BAR) - 43:55

5. Amaris Chase (BAR) - 44:30