Tanzanian beats German in a frantic sprint finish at end of 26.2 miles in Tokyo with both men given the same time of 2:09:48.

At the end of 26.2 miles of racing in the heat and humidity of Tokyo, the margin between victory and defeat in the men's marathon came down to a mere three hundredths of a second.

Alphonce Simbu of Tanzania clawed his way past leader Amanal Petros in the final metres with the German desperately throwing himself at the finish line.

Simbu earned the victory by 0.03 as both men were given the same overall time of 2:09:48.

Petros, 30, led around the final lap in the stadium and looked like he had a winning lead into the home straight, but Simbu, 33, kept his cool and rallied to find an inspirational final surge.

It meant the race ended up being closer than the 100m finals in the stadium the previous evening.

Iliass Aouani of Italy, who had been with Simbu and Petros entering the stadium for the final 350m of the race, finished third with 2:09:53.

Remarkably, five men approached the stadium together for the climax of the race but Haimro Alame of Israel and Abel Chelangat of Uganda were finally dropped just before they arrived in the arena and they wound up fourth and fifth.

Simbu has a fine championship record but this is his first major win. He was fifth in the 2016 Olympics and seventh in Tokyo at the Games in 2021. At the World Champs in London in 2017 he won a bronze medal, whereas he also finished runner-up at the 2022 Commonwealth Games and Boston Marathon earlier this year.

Emile Cairess was still in touch with the leaders at 35km and hoping to improve on his brilliant fourth place at the Olympics last year, but the Briton withdrew in the final kilometres and didn't finish.

Cairess was still in contention as the race entered its latter stages but he said he badly over-heated and decided to stop at around 38km. It was, he said, more oppressive conditions than the Paris Olympics last year.

"I tried my best," he said. "I feel I just got too hot, simple as that really, conditions were so tough, it's just really hot.

"When I stopped, I just took ages to just feel all right again, I’ve cooled down now but it took a while.

"I used all the stations to be diligent with the ice and the sponges and whilst it helped, it just still got too hot. I felt pretty good the first 25km and then 30km I was still feeling good and then about 32km I just really suddenly didn't feel very good anymore.

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"I did a decent amount of prep for the conditions, as much as I could balancing it with training. I’ve not known conditions like it, but this is only my fourth marathon. Paris was a hot one but it was more warm and this was very very humid. I did the best I could."