Runners at the ready: Boston Marathon runners compete in 128th edition

Seventeen past marathon champions and about 30,000 others started their quest to finish the 26.2-mile route, which ends on Boston’s Boylston Street.

Sisay Lemma of Ethiopia was the men’s winner of the race, finishing the grueling course with an unofficial 2:06:17 and marking his first Boston Marathon victory.

Evans Chebet would have earned his third straight win and become only the fifth in the history of the race to have three straight wins, but Lemma dashed those hopes, USA Today reported.

Hellen Obiri from Kenya is the winner of the women’s division, making her the first to win back-to-back championships since 2005, the AP reported.

Switzerland’s Marcel Hug crashed after taking a turn too fast, but still set a course record while competing in the men’s wheelchair division. It was his seventh championship.

He had a four-minute lead near the 18-mile mark when he had to navigate a turn in Newton. He hit the fence, flipping his chair on the left wheel, but was able to right himself quickly.

Hug finished the race in 1 hour, 15 minutes and 33 seconds, breaking his previous record by 1:33.

Britain’s Eden Rainbow-Coper was the women’s wheelchair division winner, finishing in 1:35:11 to take home her first major marathon championship.

Monday also marked the eleventh anniversary of the Boston Marathon Bombing, which occurred on April 15, 2013. Organizers marked the anniversary at the finish line on Boylston Street, the site of the bombing that killed three people and wounded hundreds of others.