Eliud Kipchoge returns to the London Marathon

Marathon great Eliud Kipchoge says he has “woken up” after a sobering 2024 where he failed to finish a marathon for the first time in his career and also recorded his lowest finishing place. The 40-year-old is taking part in Sunday’s London Marathon for the sixth time but it’s the first occasion he has graced the streets of the English capital since 2020 when a Covid-affected race was held in a closed loop and an unwell Kipchoge finished eighth.

Sunday could potentially be the final London Marathon for the Kenyan who is the only man to have ever run a sub-two-hour marathon - in a technology assisted event in Vienna in 2019 – and holds three of the fastest ten times in marathon history. But Kipchoge says he is “still hungry to inspire” despite entering his forties and not winning a marathon since posting 2:02:42 in Berlin in 2023.

2024 was a relative disaster for the Kenyan great after finishing a career-low of tenth in the Tokyo Marathon in March then pulling out of August’s Paris Olympics race after the 30km mark with discomfort around his waist – recording his first ever DNF. The four-time London winner faces tough competition in what organisers are calling the greatest men’s field ever assembled in the event’s history.

Defending London champion Alex Mutiso, Olympic gold medallist and 2022 World Champion Tamirat Tola, half-marathon world record holder Jacob Kiplimo and fifth-fastest man in history, Sabastian Sawe make up a fearsome men’s race in the 45th edition of the event where an estimated 56,000 runners in the mass race are expected to make it the world’s largest marathon.