Putrajaya: National track and field athlete G. Sivaneshwaran stunned the field in his marathon debut by clinching the men’s 42-kilometre (km) title at the SCORE Marathon 2025 held in Putrajaya today. Running his first-ever full marathon, Sivaneshwaran surged ahead in the final kilometres to win the flagship race in 2 hours 48 minutes and 8 seconds (2:48:08s), crossing the finish line ahead of Lim Kok Leong (2:51:00s) and Muhamad Naqib Haikal Abdul Rahman (2:51:28s).

According to BERNAMA News Agency, the seasoned long-distance runner, who won bronze in the 10,000m at the 2018 Asean University Games, credited months of intense preparation for his unexpected victory. “All I wanted was to qualify for a marathon race in Vietnam this December, where my running club would sponsor my trip. They required me to do a sub-three hours. The hard work paid off. I was training three to four months for this race. I did many long runs, spent hours working out in the gym. It’s really satisfying,” he said in a statement today.

Meanwhile, in the women’s division, local runner Lee Siok Chin delivered an impressive performance to emerge as the fastest woman of the day in 3:17:17s. The seasoned distance runner broke away early and maintained a consistent pace to outrun Vietnam’s Vu Khanh Linh who crossed the line second in 3:21:54s, followed by Malaysia’s Diana Qistina Redza in third place with a time of 3:35:53s.