Eliud Kipchoge couldn’t break the tape at the Boston Marathon finish line, but his fame helped him coast to the top of the charts as the most-tracked runner at this week’s race.
Data from the Boston Athletic Association app used to track the 30,000 participants showed the world record-holding Kenyan — who was making his Boston debut — was followed 44,570 times, close to the combined totals of the rest of the top five. The data reflect all tracking from the launch of the app about a week before the race.
Evans Chebet, who wore the winner’s wreath for the second year in a row and finished 3:29 faster than Kipchoge, who was sixth, took the tracking silver with 12,548 followers.
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Rounding out the top five were Des Linden, the 2018 women’s Boston Marathon winner, with 11,459 trackers; Bruins legend Zdeno Chara (11,383); and Emma Bates, the top American woman finisher and fifth overall at 10,853.
Leading the list of top-tracked Boston residents was the son-father combo of Henry (1,453) and Bill Richard (555), who ran with Team MR8 to honor the memory of their brother and son Martin Richard, the 8-year-old from Dorchester killed in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.
Other Dorchester-based Team MR8 members dotted the top 20 list: Ava O’Brien (339), Gerald Cahill (226), Jack Burke (224), Rachel Moo (184), and Nolan Cleary (173).
WCVB reporter Matt Reed (424) was the third-most tracked Bostonian, with local fitness trainer Kelly Whittaker (372) in fourth.
Chris Tierney, the Revolution’s director of soccer operations, and former Boston Police commissioner Bill Evans also cracked the top 20 Bostonian list.
With the exception of Chara, the “celebrity” runners’ quotient at this year’s race did not translate into action on the app.
Former Red Sox player Brock Holt did appear in 18th place (3,915), with ex-Red Sox pitcher Ryan Dempster and ex-Boston College quarterback Doug Flutie missing the top 20 cut.
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The bulk of the overall top 20 was primarily well-known men marathoners, including third-place men’s finisher Benson Kipruto (9,154, sixth tracking place) and second-place men’s finisher Gabriel Geay (8,163, eighth). American marathoner Conner Mantz edged Geay for seventh place with 8,169 followers.
Kenyan Hellen Obiri won the women’s division in her first attempt at Boston. Perhaps her newness here factored into her relatively low tracking count of 4,732, good for 13th place.
American Sara Hall’s name recognition helped carry her to a ninth-place tracking finish with 6,216 followers.
Michael Silverman can be reached at michael.silverman@globe.com.