the 48-year-old made a powerful statement at the Toronto Marathon
By Ijaz Ahmad Khan
TORONTO: The super-fit 48-year-old wins women’s title at 2025 Toronto Marathon as New Tecumseth, Ont.’s Ana Laura Fray stole the spotlight on Sunday as marathoners delivered big across Toronto, Vancouver and Georgina, Ont.
In a weekend jam-packed with marathoning, New Tecumseth, Ont.’s Ana Laura Fray delivered one of the most impressive performances of all.
On Sunday, the 48-year-old made a powerful statement at the Toronto Marathon, blazing to an overall women’s victory in 2:50:40 and proving that age is no barrier to excellence.
Her win was a standout moment among incredible results from across the country, including the BMO Vancouver Marathon and the Georgina Spring Fling, on the shores of southern Ontario’s Lake Simcoe.
The 2025 Toronto Marathon is sprinting into the city, bringing with it a slew of road closures along the entirety of the 42 km route.
For a 48th year running, athletes from across Toronto, Canada, and the world are gearing up to hit the city streets to take part of the Toronto Marathon, half-marathon, 10k ,and 5k in support of the Canadian Cancer Society.
I, for one, will be sitting this one out as I have with every other marathon that’s ever happened in Toronto and cheering my friends and their fellow competitors on from the sidelines, but if you’re planning on getting out and about in the city that day, there are plenty of road closures affecting the city all day long that you should be aware of.
The full marathon starts off just north of Yonge and Sheppard, travelling up to Churchill Avenue before looping back down Beecroft Road and rejoining onto Yonge, travelling south.
Runners continue travelling south on Yonge until they reach Davisville Avenue, where they are then rerouted westbound until they reach and turn south down Spadina. They then travel south east until they convene with Davenport, after which they will travel eastbound along it to Rosedale Valley Road, later joining with Bayview.
From there, they’ll loop around Corktown Commons, connect with King East, Eastern and later Front Street, where they’ll remain until they turn south on Bay Street and then east on Lake Shore West.
The route continues westbound along the waterfront, splitting off from Lake Shore West at Marilyn Bell Park until just beyond Humber Bay Promenade Park, at which point runners loop around and trace back eastbound along Lake Shore West until they reach the finish line at Exhibition Place. It’s as simple as that!
The marathon kicks off at 7:30 a.m, and all runners must complete their race within six hours. That means that, at most, road closures will have completely wrapped up by 1:30 p.m., leaving you free to travel however freely regular Toronto traffic allows after that.
Before then, though, there are quite a number of road closures affecting areas of the city spanning from North York all the way to Etobicoke and in between that you should keep an eye on if you’ve got places to see.
Despite the closures confirmed below, Bloor Street will remain open in both directions for the duration of the event, with traffic officials posted at major intersections to guide traffic. The southbound Highway 401 ramps at Yonge will also reopen by 10 a.m.
Runners lace up for Toronto’s 1st major marathon of the year
Sunday’s event features a half marathon (21.1 km) and full marathon (42.2 km) race, which gets underway at 7 a.m.
Some 13,000 runners participated. There were also 5 km and 10 km runs, which are happening in the Exhibition Place area.
A number of roads will be closed for the race, which starts at 7 a.m., and goes from Willowdale south to Exhibition Place, with the marathon runners looping out to Humber Bay Shores.
The current course records for the marathon are 2 hours, 15 minutes and 17 seconds for the male category and 2 hours, thirty-one minutes and 47 seconds for the females.
In a weekend jam-packed with marathoning, New Tecumseth, Ont.’s Ana Laura Fray delivered one of the most impressive performances of all.
The 48-year-old made a powerful statement at the Toronto Marathon, blazing to an overall women’s victory in 2:50:40 and proving that age is no barrier to excellence.
Her win was a standout moment among incredible results from across the country, including the BMO Vancouver Marathon and the Georgina Spring Fling, on the shores of southern Ontario’s Lake Simcoe.
“If you had told me 15 years ago when I ran my first half-marathon in Toronto, that today I would be the winner of the full distance, I would not have believed you!” Fray wrote on Instagram. “And yet, here I am, breaking the tape at 48 years old.”
The 2025 Toronto Marathon marked Fray’s 27th time tackling the 42.2-km event; even at 48, her performances sit short of her personal best of 2:46 by a mere four minutes. Fray’s coach, Emily Setlack, surprised her by entering the race herself and running beside Fray throughout; Setlack took second overall in 2:50:42. “I couldn’t be more grateful for having her running with me and throwing a bunch of positive thoughts my way as I fought throughout the race,” Fray said.
The Toronto Marathon brought its usual slew of road closures–and a showcase of outstanding efforts, with Ontario athletes leading the way. Here are the overall podium finishers.
The Results:
Men
Phil White (U.S.) – 2:23:58
Lloyd MacKinnon (Kingston, Ont.) – 2:30:24
Cesar Moreno Quiroz (Toronto) – 2:34:47
Women
Ana Laura Fray (New Tecumseth, Ont.) – 2:50:40
Emily Setlack (Trenton, Ont.) – 2:50:42
Kathie Rosselot (U.S.) – 2:55:05
Non-binary
Jocelyn Stericker (Kitchener, Ont.) – 3:57:39
Yunjeong Lee (Markham, Ont.) – 4:25:25
Mac Mc Calman (Hamilton) – 4:32:35
Men
Dominic Arce (U.S.) – 2:14:33
Tristan Woodfine (Cobden, Ont.) – 2:16:53
Yuki Kawauchi (Japan) – 2:18:17
Women
Dayna Pidhoresky (Windsor, Ont.) – 2:35:07
Lindsay Lamrock (P.E.I.) – 2:39:50
Claire Sumner (Calgary) – 2:45:27
Canada’s road racing star Andrew Davies highlighted Sunday’s half-marathon performances in Vancouver, continuing his dominant streak with a 1:04:10 to win by over a minute.
Men
Andrew Davies (Sarnia, Ont.) – 1:04:10
Ben Preisner (Oakville, Ont.) – 1:05:10
Harry Halford (U.K.) – 1:05:24.
Women
Melissa Paauwe (Calgary) – 1:17:11
Nicole Esplin (U.S.) – 1:17:33
Jouen Chang (Langley, B.C.) – 1:19:25
Georgina Spring Fling results
A favourite for residents of the GTA, the spring edition of the Georgina Marathon delivered once again near Jackson’s Point, Ont., along the shores of Lake Simcoe.
Men
Brent Scheibelhut (Toronto) – 2:34:25
Jack Smith (Barrie, Ont.) – 2:35:31
Jonathan Bradnam (Welland, Ont.) – 2:41:19
Women
Kristen Joudrey (East York, Ont.) – 3:01:53
Cathy Maggiacomo (Brantford, Ont.) – 3:11:07
Emily Mattei (Vaughan, Ont.) – 3:12:49
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