Amsterdam Marathon winner wore a four-year-old Garmin watch

Lemi Berhanu won the 2026 Amsterdam Marathon wearing a Garmin Forerunner 255, a running watch that first launched more than four years ago. Gadgets & Wearables contacted the Ethiopian runner’s representatives after the race and received confirmation of the exact model.

Berhanu crossed the finish line on Sunday, October 18, in 2:03:33, missing the Amsterdam course record by just three seconds. Kenya’s Nicholas Kipkorir finished second in 2:03:39, while Patrick Mosin took third in 2:03:58. It was a remarkably close finish, particularly given the wet conditions on the day.

The 32-year old made his decisive move in Vondelpark, dropping Kipkorir in the closing kilometres before running into the Olympic Stadium for the victory. It was also the fastest marathon of his career, and the first time Amsterdam’s top three men had all finished under 2:04.

A four-year-old Garmin on the winner’s wrist

What makes Berhanu’s choice rather surprising is the age of the watch. Garmin introduced the Forerunner 255 back in June 2022, and several newer generations of running watches have arrived since then. Yet here is one of the world’s fastest marathon runners still using it to compete at the highest level.

The Forerunner 255 was originally priced at $349.99 in the US. It weighs just 48 grams, has a traditional memory-in-pixel display and uses five physical buttons rather than a touchscreen. It also offers multi-band GPS, wrist-based heart rate tracking, running power, HRV status and Garmin’s training metrics.

Battery life is another strong point. Garmin quotes up to 30 hours in GPS-only mode and up to 16 hours with multi-band positioning enabled, far more than anyone needs for a marathon. The screen also remains easy to read in daylight without needing to wake an AMOLED display.

Of course, Garmin has moved on quite a bit since 2022. The Forerunner 265 brought an AMOLED screen and additional training features, while the newer Forerunner 570 and 970 introduced further hardware and software improvements. But there is very little on those more expensive models that would make a substantial difference when running a marathon.

It’s not the first time we’ve seen this

Berhanu is hardly alone in sticking with an older Garmin. Earlier this year, we looked at the watches worn at the 2026 London Marathon and found that women’s winner Tigst Assefa was also wearing a Forerunner 255. Garmin’s relatively affordable running watches continue to appear on the wrists of athletes producing extraordinary performances.

And only a week ago, Eliud Kipchoge won the Melbourne Marathon wearing what we identified as the Huawei Watch GT Runner 2. That is a much newer device, developed with input from Kipchoge and his running team. Berhanu’s choice is almost the opposite, a watch that has been around for years and doesn’t offer many of the headline features found on newer models.

For anyone wondering whether their older Garmin is still good enough, this is a useful reminder. The Forerunner 255 may no longer be among Garmin’s newest running watches, but it still offers accurate GPS tracking, reliable pace information and more training data than most runners will ever use. And now it has another major marathon victory to its name.