FIELDS OF DREAMS
The spring races are packed with amazing lineups. MAJORS picks out the ones to watch
This will be quite a spring season.
Everywhere you look, there are stars laden with medals and records competing in the three races we will witness between the start of March and the end of April. Picking a winner in any race may well be a fool's errand, but we can at least begin by shining a light on some of the most notable talents ready to race in the coming weeks.
The warrior
Hellen Obiri
Next race: Boston
Hellen Obiri does not do things the easy way. In 2023 she was denied the series crown by a race director vote despite winning Boston and New York. She lost out to Sifan Hassan’s London and Chicago victories in that decision-making process. But that did not deter her from claiming a second consecutive Boston title in 2024 and going on to win bronze in an epic Olympic marathon last summer. She could not quite retain her New York crown, finishing second to cap a stellar 2024 and, finally, walking off with the AbbottWMM title after another dead heat – this time with Amane Beriso. The vote went her way. She heads to Boston this year looking for a place in a small club of three-in-a-row champions there, and bidding to become the first back-to-back AbbottWMM women’s champion since the great Mary Keitany.
The game-changer
Tigst Assefa
Next race: London
Assefa hit the Majors scene like a thunderbolt from nowhere in September 2023. Her maiden race on the big stage in Berlin saw her chop more than two minutes from the world record when she set 2:11:53 in only her second marathon. She followed that display with an elbow-to-elbow battle against Peres Jepchirchir in London last year and another street-fight finale alongside Sifan Hassan in Paris, coming off second best on both occasions. Assefa has since seen Ruth Chepng’etich wrench the world record from her clutches and will be desperate to find her way back to the top of the pecking order in this golden age for women’s marathon running.
The Phenom
Sifan Hassan
Next race: London
Sifan Hassan’s marathon career has borne all the hallmarks of a Hollywood movie script so far. From fear and trepidation before her debut in London to a near miss with a motorcycle and a rousing comeback win.
She then obliterated the field in Chicago to run what was the second fastest time in history. At the 2024 Paris Olympics, Hassan achieved a historic milestone by winning the women's marathon in an Olympic record time of 2:22:55 after tackling a grueling schedule of track events that ended less than 48 hours before the marathon.
She became the first woman to win Olympic gold in the 5,000m, 10,000m, and marathon events. Every sport needs its box office star. Hassan is the one they come to watch.
The history girl
Ruth Chepng’etich
Next race: London
No one who was there will forget what they witnessed as Ruth Chepng’etich stopped the clock on Columbus Avenue in Chicago last October. She obliterated the women's marathon world record with a time of 2:09:56, making her the first woman to complete a marathon in under two hours and 10 minutes.
You might day it had been coming. Chepng'etich claimed the marathon gold at the 2019 World Athletics Championships in Doha. She also secured victories at the Chicago Marathon in 2021 and 2022, coming desperately close to doing something amazing in that second win.
In preparation for the 2025 London Marathon, she is set to compete in the Lisbon Half Marathon on March 9 where we may well get a glimpse of what she is planning in London.
Chepng’etich doesn’t possess the fireworks of Hassan or the showmanship of Assefa. She is simply, devastatingly, faster than the rest.
Men to watch
The Star Chaser
Benson Kipruto
Next race: Tokyo
You have to go back to 2020 for the last calendar year in which Benson Kipruto did not podium at an Abbott World Marathon Major. His performances since then have been impressively consistent.
He won Boston in 2021, Chicago in 2022, was second in the Windy City in 2023 and took down Eliud Kipchoge’s course record in Tokyo in 2024. He also collected bronze in the Olympic Marathon in Paris last summer, a result that sealed him top spot in the elite AbbottWMM series for the year.
He is only two stars away from the Six Star medal, with just New York and Berlin missing from his impressive CV. Kipruto seems to have a happy knack of turning up fit and ready to run fast every time he is asked. His next objective is to do the Tokyo double, but with early predictions that the leading pace group will be aiming for something in 2:01 range, he will need to make sure he is ready for a war.
The Convert
Joshua Cheptegai
Next race: Tokyo
The Ugandan is a titan of the track and still holds the world records for the 5,000 and 10,000m, as well as taking gold in Paris over the longer distance. His first dalliance with the marathon in Valencia did not end well in 2023.
Seemingly, with no worlds left to conquer on the oval circuit, he is going to attempt to right that wrong in the Japanese capital in March. In truth, nobody knows how this will go, but it should be fun finding out.
The Legend
Eliud Kipchoge
Next race: London
No one has transcended the sport more than the man known as the GOAT. Check out this issue’s Major moment for the day he introduced himself to the roaring crowds of London.
They will be screaming his name once again in April when he returns to run in a town where he wrote so many pages of his incredible story. Kipchoge’s feats rightly place him at the top of all-time greats. Is there one more performance to bolster his legend on the streets of the UK capital?
The Golden Boy
Tamirat Tola
Next race: London
Good things come to those who wait, as Tamirat Tola can attest to. Several near misses in Majors littered his resume as he found himself on the lower steps of the podium on countless occasions since coming second in the World Championships in 2017.
His luck turned in 2022 when he became world champ in Oregon. A year later he surged to a course record victory in New York City.
Still, it wasn’t enough to earn him an Ethiopian vest at the Paris Olympics, until injury to Sisay Lemma opened the door. Tola didn’t so much walk through it as blow the thing off its hinges.
He put on a masterclass of marathon running on a grueling course to become Olympic champion in record time. Now he is preparing to attack a field full of similar foes to the one he vanquished in France plus a few more strong contenders. The difference now is that they will not underestimate him.
The show-stopper
Jacob Kiplimo
Next race: London
If Jacob Kiplimo’s team would have preferred to keep his ambitions for his marathon debut under wraps until April, the man himself clearly didn’t get the memo.
In Barcelona in mid-February, the Ugandan star took the half marathon world record below 57 minutes to 56:42, 48 seconds lower than the previous mark.
It was a time that sent ripples through the marathon world.
If the half marathon can now be completed in a time like that, is it now a fait accompli that we will see the marathon record plunge through the two-hour barrier in this calendar year? Kiplimo would doubtless like to be the man to answer that question.
London has not witnessed a men’s world record fall in the Majors era, but the late Kelvin Kiptum gave it an almighty rattle there in 2023. Over to you, Jacob.
Elite wheelchair men
The Standard
Marcel Hug
Next race: Boston
We ran out of superlatives long ago for the man they call the Silver Bullet. Hug has taken the last three men’s AbbottWMM series titles in emphatic style, and arrives at the beginning of another season with the favorite tag firmly affixed to his name yet again.
At the back end of the season in 2024 he suffered a hand injury in a collision with David Weir that saw him end up third in New York. A minor blemish on an otherwise perfect season for the 39-year-old may just be the fuel he needs to liven up the competitive fire for this year.
He is not traveling to Tokyo, so someone is going to get a head start on him for this year’s series.
America’s hope
Daniel Romanchuk
Next race: Boston
Romanchuk was the man to profit most from Marcel Hug’s bad day in New York, taking his first victory since Boston 2022. The 26-year-old is the only athlete to puncture Hug’s aura of invincibility since the wheelchair series began when he lifted the AbbottWMM series title in 2019.
Hug’s move to a new chair allowed the Swiss to reassert himself as the sport’s No.1, but with more time on his side to rise again, Romanchuk knows his opportunities will come. He has been forced to sit Tokyo out with injury, so when these two collide in Boston, it will be the first chance to see if Romanchuk can match his arch rival.
Elite wheelchair women
Precision in pink
Catherine Debrunner
Next race: Tokyo
Catherine Debrunner approached the 2024 season like a deadly cobra. She chose her targets with laser-like precision and never missed when she struck. The 29-year-old Swiss athlete did not make an appearance until race No.3 in London, and promptly swept first place plus the bonus sprint points to immediately enter the fight for the title she won in 2023.
She then scooped gold in Paris, and repeated the trick in Berlin and Chicago, ending the chase for the crown in short order. There was no need to race in New York, with the title already secure. Debrunner doesn’t waste energy, just the opposition.
The new kid
Eden Rainbow-Cooper
Next race: Boston
Some athletes are built to win certain races. Ernst van Dyk won Boston 10 times thanks to his powerful shoulders propelling him up the hills.
Eden Rainbow-Cooper might just be made for Boston, too.
In 2024, at the age of just 22, she became the first British woman to win the wheelchair race on the famous old course, only two years after starting her 26.2-mile career.
She trains under the same coach as Catherine Debrunner, which is no bad place to be learning your trade. Injury had ruled her out of Tokyo so she will be extra motivated to show up in Boston and defend her first Major title.
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