Both defending champions return in a stellar line-up for this year's TCS London Marathon. London Marathon Events has announced that both the 2025 winners, Sebastian Sawe (Kenya, PB 2:02:05) and Tigst Assefa (Ethiopia, 2:11:53), are back to headline the 46th event on Sunday, 26th April 2026.

Olympic champions, world champions, world record holders, and Brits chasing records and glory are among the elite fields assembled for the Abbott World Marathon Majors race that everyone wants to run.

The three fastest men all have PBs below 2:03:00! Sawe will face Uganda's world record holder for the half marathon (56:42) Jacob Kiplimo, whose marathon best is 2:02:23, and Deresa Geleta (Ethiopia, 2:02:38).

Assefa, who set the women-only world record (2:15:50) in London last year, will have her work cut out to retain her women's title. The next quickest on paper are Olympic champion Sifan Hassan (Netherlands, 2:13:44) and 2021 London champion Joyciline Jepkosgei (Kenya, 2:14:00), while the current world champion Peres Jepchirchir (Kenya, 2:14:43) won't be far off the pace.

The British charge will be led by Emile Cairess (Leeds City AC, 2:06:46) and Eilish McColgan (Dundee Hawkhill Harriers, 2:24:25). A fired-up Cairess, who missed the race last year through injury, has a real chance of taking down Sir Mo Farah's British record (2:05:11) if conditions are conducive, but will first have to see off the home challenge of Mahamed Mahamed (Southampton AC, 2:07:05) and clubmate Phil Sesemann (Leeds City, 2:07:10).

McColgan is not the fastest British marathon runner entered, having made her delayed debut last year. The new European 10K record holder is ranked fourth of five sub-2:25:00 athletes, behind Charlotte Purdue (Aldershot, 2:22:17), Rose Harvey (Clapham Chasers, 2:23:21), and Abbie Donnelly (Lincoln Wellington AC, 2:24:11) and ahead of Jess Warner-Judd (Blackburn Harriers, 2:24:45).

It all adds up to another mouth-watering clash on the streets of the capital in April, with an estimated 800,000 spectators cheering from the roadside and millions more watching on TV.

Full information is available at the TCS London Marathon website here.

Previous results and reports are at the runABC race listing here. 

Photo courtesy of  TCS London Marathon