Men's Race: Talbi Holds Off a Late Charge to Win Chicago 13.1

• Zouhair Talbi wins in 1:01:07 (4:40/mi), holding the lead wire-to-wire across all five checkpoints.
• Emad Bashir-Mohammed rockets from 7th to 2nd with the fastest men's split on the 8K→10K segment, finishing just 10 seconds back in 1:01:17.
• Patrick Kiprop and Peter Njeru complete a tight podium at 1:01:18 and 1:01:41 — Njeru, the 2024 champion here (1:01:45), actually goes faster this year but finishes a step lower on the podium.
• Reed Fischer posts the 2nd-fastest men's split on the 5K→8K stretch, climbing from 8th to 5th on his way to a 1:02:40 finish.

Talbi ran a controlled, commanding race from the gun. He led at every checkpoint and owned the fastest men's split on the 5K→8K segment — the stretch where several rivals were still sorting themselves out. His 4:40/mi average across 13.1 miles in Chicago's mild but breezy June conditions produced a wire-to-wire victory that was never seriously threatened at the front.

The real drama unfolded just behind him. Bashir-Mohammed, just 20 years old, was sitting 7th through the early checkpoints before unleashing the fastest men's split of anyone on the 8K→10K segment. That burst carried him past Kiprop and into 2nd, where he held firm to the line at 1:01:17 — 10 seconds off the win. Kiprop, who had run in 2nd for much of the race, was pipped by that surge and held on for 3rd in 1:01:18, just one second behind Bashir-Mohammed.

Njeru's story deserves its own beat. The 2024 champion came back to defend his title and actually ran faster than his winning time a year ago — 1:01:41 versus the 1:01:45 that took the crown in 2024 — but a stronger field in 2025 left him 4th. That's a tough pill, but a testament to how competitive the men's field was this year across 4,757 finishers. Fischer and Haftu Knight rounded out a tight 5th–6th grouping at 1:02:40 and 1:02:46, while Sam Chelanga at 40 years old put in a quietly impressive 1:03:52 to claim 10th among the men.