| 1 | Irina Stankina | RUS | |
42:13 | |
| 2 | Elisabetta Perrone | ITA | |
42:16 | |
| 3 | Yelena Nikolayeva | RUS | |
42:20 | |
| 4 | Sari Essayah | FIN | 42:20 | NR | |
| 5 | Larisa Ramazanova-Khmelnitskaya | RUS | 42:25 | ||
| 6 | Rossella Giordano | ITA | 42:26 | ||
| 7 | Mária Urbanik-Rosza | HUN | 42:34 | NR | |
| 8 | Hongyu Liu | CHN | 42:46 | ||
| 9 | Kerry Saxby-Junna | AUS | 43:06 | ||
| 10 | Beate Anders-Gummelt | GER | 43:15 | ||
| 11 | Yan Gu | CHN | 43:27 | ||
| 12 | Valentina Tsybulskaya | BLR | 43:34 | ||
| 13 | Annarita Sidoti | ITA | 44:06 | ||
| 14 | Olga Kardopoltseva | BLR | 44:07 | ||
| 15 | Michelle Rohl | USA | 44:17 | NR | |
| 16 | Encarna Granados | ESP | 44:19 | ||
| 17 | Susana Feitor | POR | 44:25 | ||
| 18 | Natalya Misyulya | BLR | 44:27 | ||
| 19 | Maria Graciela Mendoza | MEX | 44:44 | ||
| 20 | Norica Cimpean | ROM | 44:46 | ||
| 21 | Tina Poitras | CAN | 45:02 | ||
| 22 | Teresa Vaill | USA | 45:02 | ||
| 23 | Anikó Szebenszky | HUN | 45:03 | ||
| 24 | Debbi Lawrence | USA | 45:03 | ||
| 25 | Miriam Ramón | ECU | 45:04 | NR | |
| 26 | María Vasco | ESP | 45:05 | ||
| 27 | Anita Liepina | LAT | 45:12 | ||
| 28 | Maya Sazonova | KZK | 45:13 | ||
| 29 | Simone Thust | GER | 45:24 | ||
| 30 | Janice McCaffrey | CAN | 45:41 | ||
| 31 | Francisca Martinez | MEX | 45:55 | ||
| 32 | Sonata Milušauskaité | LIT | 45:55 | ||
| 33 | Deirdre Gallagher | IRL | 46:00 | NR | |
| 34 | Anne Manning | AUS | 46:04 | ||
| 35 | Lisa Langford | GBR | 46:06 | ||
| 36 | Marta Zukowska | POL | 46:14 | ||
| 37 | Maria Del Rosario Sanchez | MEX | 46:54 | ||
| 38 | Kamila Holpuchova | CZE | 47:12 | ||
| 39 | Kada Delic | BSH | 47:43 | ||
| 40 | Kjersti Tysse-Plätzer | NOR | 47:57 | ||
| 41 | Giovanna Morejon | BOL | 48:18 | NR | |
| Tatyana Ragozina | UKR | DNF | |||
| Katarzyna Radtke | POL | DQ | |||
| Hongmiao Gao | CHN | DQ | |||
| Kathrin Born-Boyde | GER | DQ |