BOSTON – Oklahoma City University alum Zouhair Talbi posted a fifth-place finish in the Boston Marathon on Monday morning.
Talbi, originally from Tighassaline, Khenifra, Morocco, covered the 26.1 miles in 2 hours, 8 minutes and 35 seconds. Evans Chebet from Kenya finished first for the second consecutive year with a time of 2:05:54.
Talbi won $18,000 as the fifth-place finisher in the Boston Marathon, which is the world's oldest annual marathon dating back to 1897 and ranks as one of the world's best-known road racing events. Talbi reached the halfway mark of 13.1 miles in 1:02:20.
"Zouhair has had a great start to his professional career, but adding a fifth-place finish at a historic marathon like the Boston Marathon while beating the current record holder tops it all," OCU coach Frezer Legesse said. "Doing it while staying local and training on the roads of Oklahoma City is very special. His discipline and hard work was unmatched leading into this. We're very happy that he was rewarded with a great result."
Talbi put together one of the best resumes by a college runner ever during his OCU career. Talbi produced several marks that rank among the top 10 by a college competitor of all time.
In 2021-22, Talbi blazed his way to the third finest time in the 3,000 meters with a meet-record time of 7:40.39 in the Arkansas Qualifier on Feb. 18, 2022 in Fayetteville, Ark. Talbi finished ahead of Arkansas' Amon Kemboi, whose time ranked No. 5 on the all-time college list, and Iowa State's Wesley Kiptoo, who had the 10th best time ever. On Feb. 12, Talbi ran a 5,000-meter time that ranked eighth by a college runner (13:18.17) in the David Hemery Valentine Invitational in Boston. Talbi delivered the No. 2 10,000-meter mark (27:20.61) by a collegian May 14, 2021 in Irvine, Calif.
In the 2022 NAIA indoor track & field championships, Talbi propelled the Stars to the national title March 3-5 in Brookings, S.D. Talbi captured three individual national championships – the mile (4:07.27), 3K (8:17.67) and 5K (14:28.39). He became a five-time national champion in the NAIA indoor meet. Talbi grabbed most valuable performer of the meet for the second year in a row.
Talbi hauled in seven cross country and track & field all-American honors and seven individual national titles (including guiding OCU to the 2021 distance medley relay title). In his career, Talbi became two-time NAIA men's cross country athlete of the year, NAIA indoor men's track & field athlete of the year, two-time NAIA South Central Region cross country athlete of the year, two-time Sooner Athletic Conference male athlete of the year, two-time individual cross country national champion and two-time SAC cross country individual champion. He garnered acclaim for his academic achievement as a College Sports Communicators academic all-American®, academic all-district and on the SAC commissioner's honor roll.
Chebet reached the finish line ahead of the 17,272 male entrants and 30,239 overall competitors in the 127th edition of the Boston Marathon. Chebet was among 12 previous Boston Marathon winners in the field. Chebet collected the largest prize purse of the Abbott World Marathon Majors, $150,000.
Talbi finished ahead of Eliud Kipchoge, who is the world record holder in the marathon and two-time Olympic marathon champion. Kiphchoge came in sixth with a time of 2:09:23.
