Eliud Kipchoge has spent a career shrinking the marathon’s unknowns, but one still remains: New York City. The 40-year-old two-time Olympic champion, and the only human to cover 26.2 miles in under two hours under controlled conditions, said he would start in Staten Island next month to “complete” his major-marathon portfolio. New York is the lone Abbott World Marathon Major he has never contested.
Kipchoge’s form has grown more mercurial with age. He last won a major in Berlin in 2023 and placed ninth at August’s Sydney Marathon. But his ambition has not dimmed; he framed New York as a legacy piece as much as a race, while reiterating public stances on anti-doping after the recent suspension of Ruth Chepngetich. He also acknowledged the sport’s increasing embrace of performance technology—continuous glucose monitoring among them—as tools of longevity.
View this post on Instagram
The timing is strategic. New York will also stage the AbbottWMM Age Group World Championships, adding a second storyline to the weekend’s program and folding recreational excellence into the pro spectacle. For a champion who has often cast marathoning as a communal act—“No human is limited”—the confluence is apt.
If Sydney was a reminder that even outliers bend to time, New York offers the counter: a tactical course that rewards resilience and savvy. Kipchoge would join a field shaped by the late-autumn calendar and by the shockwaves from Chicago (and Berlin before it). Win or lose, the start line resolves one question: even late in a career of superlatives, there is still one bridge left to cross.
Sources: Reuters; Abbott World Marathon Majors.