Key keywords: Eliud Kipchoge, Cape Town Marathon 2024, Abbott World Marathon Majors Tour, Tadu Esa, Tegla Dida, Kenyan distance running, marathon course record, elite road racing The 2024 Cape Town Marathon delivered two historic record-breaking performances and a landmark milestone for global road running on Sunday, as Tadu Esa and Tegla Dida claimed the men’s and women’s elite titles respectively, while marathon world record holder Eliud Kipchoge officially kicked off the first-ever Abbott World Marathon Majors (WMM) World Tour at the event. Esa, a 28-year-old emerging Ethiopian long-distance talent, crossed the finish line in 2:05:42, slicing 38 seconds off the previous men’s course record set in 2022. He pulled away from the 8-runner lead pack at the 37km mark, holding off a late surge from Kenyan runner Jonathan Korir to take the $35,000 first-place prize, plus an additional $10,000 bonus for the course record. On the women’s side, 26-year-old Kenyan athlete Tegla Dida dominated the race from the 15km point, finishing in 2:21:10 and breaking the old women’s course record by more than a minute. Both Esa and Dida automatically earn 50 WMM World Tour points for their wins, putting them at the top of the global leaderboard for the 2024-2025 tour season, with a clear path to qualify for all six World Marathon Majors races next year. As the official global ambassador for the new WMM World Tour, Kipchoge fired the starting gun for the elite races and addressed the crowd of more than 25,000 runners from 78 countries ahead of the start. "For decades, the World Marathon Majors have been the highest peak for marathon runners, but access to these races has been out of reach for thousands of talented athletes across lower-income regions," Kipchoge said in his opening speech. "This new tour changes that: we are bringing elite competition to the communities where so many of the world’s best runners are born and trained, giving them a clear path to compete on the global stage without the financial burden of international travel just to earn qualifying times." The 12-stop WMM World Tour will run through August 2025, with stops in Johannesburg, Seoul, Buenos Aires, Lisbon, and other cities across four continents. The top 10 male and female runners on the final points leaderboard will earn free entries to all six Abbott World Marathon Majors events (Boston, London, Berlin, Chicago, New York, Tokyo) in 2026, plus a share of a $1 million bonus prize pool. Kipchoge also confirmed during his Cape Town appearance that he will compete in the 2024 Berlin Marathon next month, where he will attempt to break his own existing world record of 2:01:09 set at the same event in 2022. Race organizers reported that this year’s Cape Town Marathon saw a 30% increase in participant numbers compared to 2023, with 60% of elite runners hailing from African countries, a 45% rise from last year’s event.