Two elite champions just pulled out of one of the world’s most prestigious marathons — and somehow, the race just got more interesting.
The 2026 TCS London Marathon has weathered back-to-back blows, losing reigning Olympic champion Sifan Hassan and World champion Peres Jepchirchir in the same month to injury withdrawals.
For most races, that would be a catastrophe.
But what remains on the start line this Sunday is a three-way showdown that marathon fans have been waiting years to see — and one of the biggest open questions in the sport is finally about to get answered.
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Three Women. One Finish Line.
The 2026 TCS London Marathon women’s elite field still boasts three of the world’s top six ranked marathoners from 2025, setting up a heavyweight collision between defending champion Tigst Assefa, four-time New York winner Hellen Obiri, and 2025’s fastest woman, Joyciline Jepkosgei.
The professional women go off at 9:05 a.m. BST on Sunday, April 26 — that’s 4:05 a.m. ET for fans stateside setting their alarms.
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Weather conditions look favorable for fast times, with partly cloudy skies, temperatures in the low-to-mid 50s Fahrenheit, and light easterly winds of just 3–8 mph.
Assefa Is Chasing History — Again
Tigst Assefa doesn’t just win marathons. She rewrites them.
The Ethiopian star burst onto the global stage with a jaw-dropping 2:15:37 victory in Berlin in 2022, seemingly out of nowhere. Since then, she has run six marathons, won three — including a 2:11:53 world record at the 2023 Berlin Marathon — and never finished lower than second.
Last year at London, she crossed the line in 2:15:50, a world record for a women’s-only race. Now she wants more.
My training has gone well, it has been better, even, than my preparation last year, so I think it is possible to beat the record I set last year.
Assefa also made clear that pacing will be critical to that effort, telling race organizers she expects the pacers to set her up to move faster through the halfway point than she did in 2025.
Should she better her own women’s-only mark, she would also be creeping dangerously close to Paula Radcliffe’s London course record of 2:15:25 — a time that has stood since 2003 and was set with male pacers.
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The Question Everyone Is Asking About Obiri
Hellen Obiri is one of the most decorated distance runners alive. But there’s a burning question that has followed her into every conversation about marathon greatness — how fast can she actually run when given the right conditions?
In eight career marathons, Obiri has almost exclusively raced Boston, New York, and the Olympics. All prestigious. None exactly designed for record-chasing. She didn’t even break 2:21 until her seventh career start, and her personal best sits at 2:17:41 — significantly slower than the women she regularly competes against.
London changes everything. It’s flat, it has pacers, and Sunday could be the day the running world finally gets its answer.
Her coach, Dathan Ritzenhein, isn’t shy about what he believes she’s capable of. When Obiri won New York back in 2023, he told LetsRun he believed she could run 2:11 on a course like Valencia or Berlin with ideal conditions. More strikingly, he says the 36-year-old has only gotten better since then.
She never ceases to amaze me. I always think well, she can’t get fitter or better. But she seems to do that.
Obiri tuned up for London by winning the NYC Half Marathon on March 15 in 66:33 — beating Sharon Lokedi by 37 seconds, the same Lokedi who dominated the Boston Marathon just days ago.
A personal best feels inevitable. A 2:11? Probably a stretch, given London’s female pacers typically exit around the 25–30k mark rather than going the full distance like male pacers would in Berlin.
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Obiri’s Path to Victory Runs Through the Final 400
Ritzenhein has clearly mapped out his athlete’s strategy — and it’s no secret.
All three of Assefa’s career defeats have come the same way: she was outkicked in the final stretch. Jepchirchir did it at the 2024 London Marathon and the 2025 World Championships. Hassan did it at the 2024 Olympics. Obiri, meanwhile, has built her entire career on closing fast and finishing fierce.
If we get a pacer that goes to 30k, someone’s still gonna have to do the heavy lifting — and I’m not going to tell Hellen to do it. She’s the best at closing.
Assefa leads their head-to-head, taking silver while Obiri claimed bronze at the 2024 Olympics — though Obiri entered that race with a shortened buildup. Sunday is her shot at settling the score on a level playing field.
Don’t Sleep on Joyciline Jepkosgei
While the Assefa-Obiri narrative dominates the headlines, Joyciline Jepkosgei has quietly become one of the most dangerous women in marathon running — and London is her house.
The 32-year-old Kenyan has made the London podium in four consecutive appearances: winning in 2021, finishing second in 2022, third in 2024, and runner-up again in 2025. She then closed out last year by winning the Valencia Marathon in a personal best of 2:14:00, defeating world champion Peres Jepchirchir by 43 seconds. She also ran a half marathon personal best of 64:13 in Barcelona, ranking her eighth all-time.
In a de facto round-robin between herself, Jepchirchir, and Assefa across London, the World Championships, and Valencia last year, each woman went 1-1. Jepkosgei had as strong a claim to the world number one ranking as anyone.
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She will not go quietly on Sunday.
How It All Plays Out
With Hassan and Jepchirchir gone, the field beyond the top three is limited. Ethiopia’s Degitu Azimeraw is the only other entrant to have broken 2:20, and her results since a second-place London finish in 2021 haven’t suggested a podium challenge is coming.
This is a three-horse race — full stop.
Assefa enters as the slight favorite, and the smart money says she’ll look to surge once the pacers drop out, avoiding a tactical kick finish where Obiri holds all the cards. Whether that strategy holds over the brutal final 12k of the London course is another question entirely.
Whatever happens, someone is running into history on Sunday morning.
