Tigst Assefa won Sunday's Berlin Marathon on a completely torn Achilles tendon. Her manager, Gianni Demadonna, told AFP on Monday that the Ethiopian had surgery in Munich after the race, at a Bavarian sports clinic that specialises in tendon injuries.
Assefa, 29, first felt pain at about 31km, and the tendon gave way over the closing kilometres. By the last two kilometres it had ruptured completely, Demadonna said. "She was running with one leg and the other one was just landing on the ground, it just wasn't pushing."
That changes how the race reads. She was chasing the world record until a late limp slowed her, and on race day the slowdown was put down to cramp. She still finished in 2:11:04, the third-fastest time a woman has run, for her third Berlin title.
She now faces about seven months out, and Demadonna named the London Marathon in April 2027 as a possible return. It is not her first Achilles problem: an injury to the same tendon in 2016 is what moved her from the track to the marathon.
Source
Original summary by Proventier.