Sifan Hassan will run the 2025 London Marathon
You’re bound to remember it – the win that nobody saw coming at the 2023 London Marathon. An accomplished track athlete who was completely new to the marathon, Sifan Hassan chose the 2023 London Marathon for her 26.2-mile debut – an experiment over a new distance that even she was worried about. ‘What the hell am I thinking?’ harked the elite but endearingly relatable runner when asked about her move to the marathon.
Hassan’s inexperience appeared to show within the first half of that race, when she was seen stopping and stretching to relieve a hip complaint. Although she managed to continue and claw her way back to the leaders, the final few kilometres on Embankment brought another tense moment as Hassan almost collided with an official motorbike on the course.
But the Dutch star soon put any doubts to bed. As she turned onto the The Mall – the immense finishing stretch beside Buckingham Palace – she unleashed her sprinter’s kick to overtake her opponents and win the elite women’s race in astonishing fashion.
And now, it has been confirmed that she’ll be back. Two years on from her dazzling marathon debut, Hassan will return to the English capital to run the 2025 London Marathon on Sunday 27 April.
Hassan’s remarkable running CV
This time, however, Hassan won’t be so naive over the marathon distance.
Six months on from her 2023 victory in London, she won that year’s Chicago Marathon in 2:13:144, which was, at the time, a new women’s course record. Then, of course, came the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. Having already scooped a trio of medals at the 2020 Games in Tokyo, Hassan made history when she became the first-ever woman to bag a medal in all three Olympic long-distance running events – and the first person to do so since Emil Zatopek at the 1952 Games in Helsinki. In Paris, within the scant space of six days, she claimed a bronze in the 5000m, a bronze in the 10,000m and a gold – plus Olympic record – in the marathon.
To this day, Hassan is still the third-fastest woman of all time over the marathon – and it’s not impossible that she’ll move higher up the list in London this year.
‘It feels so special to come back to the London Marathon,’ said Hassan, whose first experience of the event is what catalysed her love for – and curiosity about – the marathon. ‘This is where I ran my very first marathon and began my journey in this incredible distance. London is also where I learned to be patient, to trust myself and to keep pushing even when it feels impossible. It is a place where I grew – not just as an athlete, but as a person.
‘In London this time, I hope that I don’t have to stretch or go through any drama,’ added Hassan, jovially, to Runner’s World UK. ‘When I go back, it doesn’t matter what happens – I just want to enjoy it. Last time, I didn’t really see anything – I was so scared of the marathon, so focused on myself and constantly calculating whether or not I was going to finish, what was going to happen and whether it would hurt. I was worried that people thought I was no good, or that I’d make a mistake – and that it was a silly thing to do.
‘Even if I want to freak out again this year, I can’t freak out! Now, I’m just excited about running in London and have so much more confidence than I did two years ago.’
Gold medals galore
Hassan, who was crowned World Athletics’ Women’s World Athlete of the Year in 2024, won’t be the only champion toeing the line at the 2025 London Marathon.
She’ll be joined by not one but three fellow gold medallists in the marathon at the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games – the full set.
Tamirat Tola, of Ethiopia, will run the London Marathon for the fifth time this year, having never placed higher than third at the event. A former marathon world champion who won the 2023 New York City Marathon and – like Hassan – set a new Olympic marathon record in Paris last summer, Tola will be hungry to take the top spot in London this time round.
‘Winning the Olympic marathon was the greatest moment of my running career, but I don’t want it to be my last great moment,’ mused Tola. ‘I want to continue competing for the biggest titles in this sport and the London Marathon is very much one of those. I know that London always brings the best marathon racers in the world together, so it will not be easy – but it is my ambition to win this historic race for the first time in April.’
Meanwhile, Marcel Hug and Catherine Debrunner – two seemingly unstoppable Swiss athletes – will be out to win the men’s and women’s wheelchair races respectively at the 2025 London Marathon, having both seized marathon gold at the 2024 Paralympic Games. Debrunner has already won the London Marathon twice, while Hug has broken the tape at the race six times. What’s more, both athletes are the reigning London Marathon champions and course record holders.
‘We are delighted that these four great champions from the fantastic 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games will be at the London Marathon and we look forward to welcoming them here,’ said Hugh Brasher, CEO of London Marathon Events, which organises the London Marathon. ‘There were so many amazing performances during those Games, but, in particular, the world was transfixed by the unique achievements of Sifan Hassan.
‘She ran an extraordinary debut marathon to win in London in 2023 and we can’t wait to see what she does on Sunday 27 April.’
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