Amanuel Mesel wins 50th Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth
Amanuel Mesel won Grandma’s Marathon in 2:11:21, beating Elisha Barno by 1:29. The first-time men’s champion defined Duluth’s 50th running.
Amanuel Mesel turned Grandma’s Marathon’s 50th running into a career-defining win, pulling away late to claim his first men’s title in 2:11:21 and beat six-time champion Elisha Barno in Duluth. The 35-year-old runner from Eritrea finished 1 minute, 29 seconds ahead of Barno, giving the North Shore’s biggest race a finish that carried weight well beyond the clock.
Mesel’s victory gave the milestone edition of Grandma’s a champion with both pedigree and proof. He had already shown he could contend on the Duluth course, placing fourth in his debut in 2024 and third in 2025 before breaking through in the race that began in Two Harbors and finished in Canal Park on Saturday, June 20, 2026. After the race, Mesel pointed to that progression himself: “I’ve run here twice before and finished fourth and third.”
The winning move came after Mesel spent the early miles in a deep front group and then waited for the field to thin. Coverage from the race said he was part of an eight-man lead pack at halfway, then began to press late after feeling strong around the 30K mark, knowing the chasers would not close the gap. By the time the lead pack reached the Duluth city limits, Mesel had the race under control.
That matters in a year when Grandma’s marked its 50th anniversary and once again drew an elite men’s field worthy of the occasion. Mesel did not simply inherit a title in a thin race. He finished ahead of Barno, a Grandma’s Hall of Famer and one of the event’s all-time greats, which gave the win added competitive credibility and made the result stand out in a milestone year for Duluth.
The top of the leaderboard reinforced that depth. Getinet Gedamu was third in 2:13:03, Sammy Rotich placed fourth in 2:13:04, and Will Norris was fifth in 2:13:08. Grandma’s Marathon has been held every year since 1977, and Mesel’s breakthrough added a new name to a race history that now stretches across five decades in St. Louis County’s signature summer sporting event.
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