In a dramatic finish to the women’s race at the New York City Marathon on Sunday, Peres Jepchirchir of Kenya pulled away in the final meters to win, just three months after she won gold in the women’s marathon at the Tokyo Olympics.
Jepchirchir finished in 2:22:39, just four seconds ahead of Viola Cheptoo, also of Kenya. (Cheptoo is the runner Bernard Lagat’s younger sister.) Ababel Yeshaneh of Ethiopia finished third.
Molly Seidel, who won bronze at the Olympics in August, finished fourth as the top American.
First Avenue is heating up as more runners start to fill the street. People are shouting, blowing whistles, ringing cowbells, and a live band is playing “Ring of Fire.”
reporting from the marathon
The lead women are through 23 miles, as Viola Cheptoo and Peres Jepchirchir of Kenya and Ababel Yeshaneh of Ethiopia continue to jostle for position. Molly Seidel of the United States is in fourth, about 43 seconds behind.
reporting from the marathon
The area near Cumberland and Lafayette in Brooklyn is electric, with runners slowing down and dancing as they make their way down the course. The song currently blasting is “Hot in Herre” by Nelly. The DJ, acknowledging the marathon’s hiatus last year due to the pandemic, said “We can’t even tell you how much we missed you. We’re back, that’s all that matters.”
The scene near the starting line includes a lot runners waiting anxiously and slowly shedding articles of clothing as their start time nears. When they hear the national anthem, runners know it’s almost time.
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[singing “The Star-Spangled Banner”] … by the dawn’s early light. What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming.
Joel Gonzalez is camped out on First Ave with two massive Puerto Rico flags. Joel, who ran the 2017 and 2018 marathons, said he’s here to cheer on everyone, but especially the Latin community. He’s also hoping today will be a personal reset, he said — he’s going to quit smoking today and start training for the 2022 marathon tomorrow.
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Three men are in hot pursuit of Eyob Faniel and Mohamed Reda El Aaraby: Kibiwott Kandie, Albert Korir and Elkanah Kibet, who are about 44 seconds behind at the 25-kilometer mark. Kenenisa Bekele is in seventh, less than a minute back.
And now, at the 20-mile mark in the Bronx, three women have broken free of Molly Seidel and the rest of the field: Peres Jepchirchir, Ababel Yeshaneh and Viola Cheptoo. Seidel is 11 seconds behind.
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We have some drama in the men’s race, as the leaders hit the 25-kilometer mark. A pair of Kenyans, Albert Korir and Kibiwott Kandie, have caught Eyob Faniel and Mohamed Reda El Aaraby, who had been leading since the early stages. Korir and Kandie have continued to surge, creating separation between themselves and Faniel and El Aaraby, who are in third and fourth now.
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Albert Korir, who was the runner-up in 2019, has surged to the front of the men’s race, and looks incredibly comfortable through 20 miles, building a 5-second gap on Kibiwott Kandie. Kenenisa Bekele is a distant seventh, more than 2 minutes back.
Ben True spent years training alone. New Hampshire is home for him, and it’s not a running mecca like Boulder or Flagstaff that draws big-name elite runners.
In recent months, True decided to mix things up. After spreading word among friends that he would be willing to go so far as to pay someone to relocate and train with him, True, 35, now has two full-time running buddies — Dan Curts and Fred Huxham, both 25 — who have used True to feed their own ambitions in the sport.
With a small community behind him, True is making his marathon debut, nearly five months after he narrowly missed an Olympic berth in the 10,000 meters when he finished fourth at the United States trials. And while he has guarded against putting too much pressure on himself, he considers New York something of a test. A test, he said, to see whether he is “cut out for the marathon.” And a test to determine whether his future in the sport is financially viable.
He is facing a loaded field including the likes of Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia, a four-time Olympic medalist and five-time world champion. True has never raced with a wristwatch, he said, but he plans to wear one for the marathon to protect himself from himself. He has some familiarity with the course, and knows how runners can surge at various points of the race, like Mile 16 off the Queensboro Bridge.
“I’m somebody who thrives on latching onto somebody and never letting go,” True said. “But if Bekele drops a 4:30 mile coming off the bridge, I probably shouldn’t try to match him.”
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Adriana Martinez, 44 of Yonkers, New York. “I feel great. It’s my first marathon and it’s my birthday. It feels so special in so many ways.”
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Josh Cassidy, who finished fourth in the men’s wheelchair race for his best finish yet, said the race was “surprisingly really great.” He competed in Boston but took time off for the birth of his son two weeks ago and didn’t have high expectations for today’s race. “It is so good to be back in New York. I missed it.”
In 2019, Kenenisa Bekele came within two seconds of breaking Eliud Kipchoge’s world record, completing the Berlin Marathon in 2 hours 1 minute 41 seconds. At 39, the Ethiopian star has come to the New York City Marathon for the first time, to prove he can still win anywhere.
“I will be in a very good position,” Bekele said of his chances.
Indeed. He is just about the fastest marathoner alive, and so much faster than everyone else in the race, even if this marathon does not necessarily favor the fleetest in the field.
He refuses to accept the idea that runners approaching their 40th birthday are not supposed to even think about winning one of the six world marathon majors. He said he believes he can find those two seconds he left on the course in Berlin in 2019 and break Kipchoge’s world record.
“I can go faster, and I can win races,” he said. “If I go faster I will win the race.”
reporting from the marathon
The lead women have hit the halfway point, with Annie Frisbie continuing at the front. Her fellow Americans Molly Seidel, Kellyn Taylor and Laura Thweatt are also among the leaders. Their estimated finish time is 2:25:26.
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The lead pack has now thinned to nine — including the four Americans.
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Just now, as Molly Seidel led the women through 17 miles, she gave a little wave to the crowd. But within seconds, three other athletes, including Peres Jepchirchir of Kenya, the gold medalist from Tokyo, tried to surge past her. Seidel had to counter the move to keep up with them. Those four have separated themselves, at least for now. The race is on.
reporting from the marathon
The men’s field has been stringing out as various contenders take turns at the front and push the pace. Through 15 kilometers, the equivalent of just over 9 miles, two men have surged to the front: Mohamed Reda El Aaraby of Morocco and Eyob Faniel of Italy, who have a 23-second gap on six others, including Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia. Ben True of the United States, who wanted to be cautious with his pace, already has a lot of ground to make up.
reporting from the marathon
Mohamed Reda El Aaraby and Eyob Faniel continue to press forward in the men’s race, building a 42-second lead on everyone else as they approach the halfway point. Both are gambling big, as more seasoned and accomplished runners behind them bide their time. The two leaders are averaging a 4:53 per mile pace.
Madison de Rozario of Australia won her first New York City Marathon women’s wheelchair title, turning a race that was tight early on into a one-woman show in Manhattan and the Bronx.
De Rozario finished in 1 hour 51 minutes 1 second.
Unlike the men’s wheelchair race, the women’s division was a dogfight between Manuela Schar, 36, the defending champion from Switzerland, Tatyana McFadden, 32, a five-time New York City champion, and de Rozario, 27.
It was de Rozario’s third time racing in the New York City Marathon.
At the halfway point, McFadden poked ahead by about five seconds. McFadden pushed up the Queensboro Bridge spanning Queens and Manhattan, with de Rozario a few seconds behind. Schar fell much further back.
But after McFadden hit the peak of the bridge and began to glide down, de Rozario sped past her. De Rozario then pulled ahead for good on First Avenue and continued to build her lead.
Being chased by McFadden and Schar “is one of the most terrifying things in the marathon, so I definitely wanted to avoid” being caught, de Rozario said after the race. “So when that gap opened up, yeah, I just kind of tried to do everything I could to hold it.”
De Rozario won the gold medal in the marathon at this year’s Tokyo Paralympic Games, edging out Schar by one second. She also won gold in the 800 meters in a Paralympic record time, and bronze in the 1,500 meters.
She won the London Marathon in 2018.
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Xenia Roman, 36, dressed as a purple unicorn to cheer on the runners that pass by her. She chose the outfit because “it’s warm and cozy and because I think it might cheer people up while they’re running by.”
It’s not uncommon for elite runners to take as many as six weeks off from running after a grueling marathon.
Then there is Shalane Flanagan, 40, the New York City Marathon champion in 2017, who did the opposite. With all six of the world’s major marathons packed into as many weeks this fall because of the coronavirus pandemic, Flanagan saw an opportunity to do something extraordinary. She decided to run them all — Berlin, London, Chicago, Boston, Tokyo and New York — in under three hours each.
Flanagan, who is retired from professional running, traveled roughly 10,000 miles round-trip with her toddler son for Berlin and London. She ran Chicago and Boston on back-to-back days. Organizers ultimately canceled the Tokyo race, but Flanagan still ran a marathon on her own near her home in Oregon two weeks ago to make up for it. Her slowest time was in Chicago, which she completed in 2 hours 46 minutes 39 seconds. She completed three of the races in under 2:40, including an extremely fast 2:35:04 in London.
Now New York is her final test. Flanagan, a coach with Nike’s Bowerman Track Club in Portland who has had two reconstructive knee surgeries, said she is healthy and ready to finish off a quest that seemed ridiculous when she first went public with it.
Ridiculous, that is, to everyone except her.
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Robin Gelfenbien has a “damn you are sexy” sign for today’s race. She says one of the elite runners passing by “turned around like full 180 with her head. And I was like, Girl, you gonna fall, stay focused on this race.” She added, “I think it’s always nice to make people laugh as they’re going through something that’s so grueling.”
Tayshia Adams, a co-host and previous star of “The Bachelorette,” was among the runners waiting for the Staten Island Ferry to shuttle them to the starting line of the New York City Marathon.
Adams is running her first marathon, and it turns out that starring in “The Bachelorette” has helped prepare her for the marathon.
“My nerves are at bay right now,” Adams, 31, said. “I’m not too crazy nervous, and it’s just about taking a leap of faith and putting yourself out there and hoping for good results.”
Adams will be joined in the race by her fiancé Zac Clark, 37, who she became engaged to on season 16 of the show. Clark is running the race for the seventh time.
Matt James and Tyler Cameron, also of the “Bachelor” and “Bachelorette” franchise, are also running on Sunday.
On Sunday, Sept. 13, 1970, the day before his senior year began at Long Island City High School, Larry Trachtenberg was one of 127 athletes who lined up in Central Park to run the first New York City Marathon. He was one of 55 finishers.
Trachtenberg, now 67, is now on the course running the marathon again (this time on the modern course that runs through all five boroughs).
He is the lone runner who ran the inaugural New York City Marathon who is also racing in this year’s event, the marathon’s 50th running.
“I wouldn’t go through all of this for Boston or London or whatever,” Trachtenberg said over the phone from his home in Eugene, Ore. “It’s just that it’s New York.”
For New York City Marathon runners, it’s a journey just to get to the starting line. And for all the fans, volunteers and police, there’s a lot of work to do before the first wave goes off.
reporting from the marathon
Rykiel Levine, an emergency room resident at Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx, came out as a medical volunteer with her fellow residents. It is her first year volunteering. “It means that the world is going back to normal, which is really exciting, and it’s really nice to see the city coming together and connecting and making us feel like this pandemic may be behind us,” she said.
Marcel Hug of Switzerland, known as the “Silver Bullet,” continued his stellar 2021 by winning his fourth New York City Marathon, dominating the men’s wheelchair race.
Hug led from the start, finishing in 1 hour 31 minutes 24 seconds.
Hug, 35, won four gold medals at the Tokyo Paralympic Games this summer, including his second consecutive gold in the marathon. After Tokyo, he won the Berlin, London and Boston marathons and finished in second place in the Chicago Marathon just behind one of his biggest rivals, Daniel Romanchuk of the United States.
Hug, who is using a new, high-tech chair, lost to Romanchuk by one second in New York City in 2019, after winning in 2017. He held off Kurt Fearnley of Australia, the course record-holder, by six one-hundreds of a second in 2016. In 2013, Hug beat Ernst van Dyk by five-tenths of a second.
Hug faced no such drama on Sunday. He held a three-minute lead over David Weir of Britain after 20 kilometers and passed the halfway point at 43:52, and was on course to smash the course record by nearly two minutes. His lead ballooned to more than three minutes as he sped up First Avenue. That lead grew to more than six minutes by the finish.
“It’s really crazy” to win, Hug said after the race. “It’s been such a tough fall with the Paralympics and then all these marathons.”
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The finish line is waiting for the first runners. There won’t be a family reunion area this year due to Coronavirus restrictions. Earlier, it was quiet here except for the clanging of medals being hung in preparation for the arrival of runners.
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Molly Seidel has gotten a lot of attention (and deservedly so), but a couple of other fellow Wisconsinites have been right at the front of the women’s field so far: Annie Frisbie, an Iowa State graduate who runs for the Minnesota Distance Elite team, and Kellyn Taylor, who placed eighth at the U.S. Olympic marathon trials in 2020. All three are among the leaders as the women go through 10 kilometers in 35:02.
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Leila Harris is an art historian who lives along the route in Bay Ridge. She and her husband, Patrick Carney, brought two-year-old Reid to watch his first marathon.
“I love the energy of marathon day. I think it would have been unsettling last year,” Harris said.
Halfway through the women’s wheelchair race, Tatyana McFadden, the five-time race champion, poked ahead by five seconds over Manuela Schar and Madison de Rozario.
Heading into Manhattan, de Rozario passes McFadden as they glide off the bridge and is sprinting away. Schar is a distant third place now.
reporting from the marathon
And 25 minutes after the elite women navigated across the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge and into Brooklyn, the professional men have started their race. Keep an eye on Kenenisa Bekele, an Ethiopian who is one of the most decorated distance runners ever — and was awarded the No. 1 race bib.
reporting from the marathon
The women are through the first 5 kilometers of their race in 18 minutes flat, which is a fairly conservative 5:48 per mile pace. Molly Seidel has been right at the front of the pack.
Molly Seidel, 27, won the bronze medal in the Olympic marathon in Japan this year, and she is sure to be a crowd favorite in the New York City Marathon. One of American distance running’s most captivating and candid personalities, Seidel consistently cites her coach, Jon Green — now 26 and considered something of a coaching wunderkind — as a major factor in her success.
“Jon Green,” Seidel said, “is the reason I have a marathoning career.”
As they began to work together, one of the first things that Green did was eliminate the speedier workouts that had led to injuries for Seidel. The idea, Green said, was to avoid any training that was faster than 5-kilometer race pace. High volume, though, had never been an issue for her.
“Where she excels is doing easy mileage,” Green said, “and a lot of easy mileage. Like, 100-plus miles a week comes really easy and natural to her.”
reporting from the marathon
Runners will be bundled up as they wait in the cold for the race to begin. Once they get going, however, they’ll shed a lot of those layers. The organizers of the marathon collect and donate the clothes (over 120,000 pounds of it at the last marathon).
The New York City Marathon, an event that brings tens of thousands of participants and upward of a million spectators to the city’s streets, has always been a day filled with emotion. But the race’s comeback after a pandemic that ravaged the city and brought it to a standstill makes this year’s installment especially meaningful for the organizers, the runners and those who cheer them on.
The marathon is also another important milestone in the city’s long recovery, with officials eager to prove that New York remains vibrant and ready to welcome back guests — and their dollars — as concerns about the virus ease.
“It brings back not only a sense of normalcy, but also a sense of resiliency,” said Kerin Hempel, the chief executive of New York Road Runners, the organization that operates the marathon.
Some modifications are in place because of the coronavirus pandemic, but Hempel and many of those racing do not expect the changes to dampen the enthusiasm from spectators, a distinguishing feature that they say sets the city’s marathon apart from other major races. If anything, they believe the sense of unity that characterizes the marathon will be particularly strong.
“To me, it just shows the power of the city itself,” said Bruna Martins, 34, a Manhattan resident who is running the marathon for the third time. “This year, after everything we’ve been through, if anything, people are just going to be really excited out there.”
Marcel Hug, a three-time New York City Marathon champion, passes the halfway point at 43 minutes 52 seconds and remains on track to set a course record in the men’s wheelchair division.
Hug, who leads the men’s wheelchair division by three minutes, has had quite a 2021: Four gold medals in the Tokyo Games, and first place in the Berlin, London and Boston marathons.
reporting from the marathon
When runners arrive at the finish line, they will get a bag with pretzels, an apple, water, Gatorade, a protein shake and energy bars.
reporting from the marathon
And now the professional women’s runners are off on a chilly, sun-drenched morning. The field includes Molly Seidel, a crowd favorite and the bronze medalist from the Tokyo Games. She acknowledged last week that she had not had the best, most consistent build-up in her training for today’s race, so it will be interesting to see how she fares. She won’t be hard to spot: She’s wearing a fluorescent singlet.
The women’s wheelchair race after 10 kilometers is a three-way fight between Manuela Schar of Switzerland, Tatyana McFadden of the United States and Madison de Rozario of Australia.
Through 15 kilometers, Marcel Hug of Switzerland has an overwhelming lead over David Weir of Britain in the men’s wheelchair division. Hug is on pace to shatter the course record by nearly three minutes.
The New York City Marathon is the last place anyone expects to find a couple of speedsters. And yet, the men’s field features two of the world’s fastest distance runners.
Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia has won basically everything there is to win in distance running, and in the 2019 Berlin Marathon he came within two seconds of breaking Eliud Kipchoge’s world record of 2 hours 1 minute 39 seconds. On paper he is by far the fastest man in the field — but is he faster than Kibiwott Kandie?
Kandie, of Kenya, set the world record in the half-marathon last year when he completed the distance in 57:32. New York is his debut marathon, which raises a fascinating question: Can the fastest-ever half-marathoner keep up with one of the greatest marathoners ever? We’ll see.
The women’s field features several Olympians who competed in August in Japan. Molly Seidel, the American who won the bronze medal at the Tokyo Games, will be a crowd favorite. To win she will have to overcome Peres Jepchirchir of Kenya, who won the gold medal. Sally Kipyego, another American Olympic marathoner, will also be in the field in a race that usually becomes extremely tactical.
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One important change for this year’s race: Organizers say there won’t be banana stations. Runners will have to make do with energy gels, water and Gatorade until the finish line.
Handcycle Category and Select Athletes With Disabilities Start
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Dave Obelkevich, 78, plans to walk his 44th New York Marathon. “This year is special to me. Some kids were fooling around and I got knocked to the ground and I broke three ribs. All I have to do is finish.”
And now they’re off, too! The women’s wheelchair race begins, led by Tatyana McFadden of the United States and Manuela Schar of Switzerland.
And they’re off! The men’s wheelchair race begins at 8 a.m. sharp, led by Daniel Romanchuk of the United States and Marcel Hug of Switzerland.
Professional Wheelchair Division Start
The New York City Marathon, first held in 1970 with 127 runners in Central Park, celebrates its 50th running this year — and an expected 30,000 people will be on the starting line. Ten New York Times photographers will be on site to cover the race, an increase from the one who shot the event in 1970.
Photo editors recently dug through The Times’s archives and collected images from the last five decades for a recent special section that chronicles the race’s history in pictures.
The photos follow the race from the early-morning hours before the start through the last finishers well after dark, accompanied by narration from a longtime Times marathon reporter, Jeré Longman. You can also read interviews with four photographers who have covered the race for The Times.
reporting from the marathon
Jonathan Epstein, 53, is at the race as a member of the Veteran Corps of Artillery of the State of New York, a ceremonial historical military unit.
“I feel good. It’s a great atmosphere around the marathon. Very happy to be doing my part with these great guys.”
Not very long ago, there was a pretty strong case to be made that New York Road Runners, the organization that owns and stages the New York City Marathon, was the de facto leader of running in the United States.
The organization helped establish and fund a group of runners who led the revival of elite American long distance running. It hosted the Olympic Trials marathon ahead of the 2008 Olympics. It established a groundbreaking antidoping and testing policy. It expanded the New York City Marathon to allow for more than 50,000 finishers, making it the world’s largest. Its annual revenues surpassed $110 million, roughly triple the amount that U.S.A. Track & Field, the national governing body for running, collects most years.
That primacy hit the wall during the last year and a half. The pandemic caused the cancellation of five of the organization’s most profitable events, leading to an 80 percent drop in racing revenue. Roughly half of the 260 staff members lost their jobs. On Instagram, a group of employees anonymously accused senior management of behaving insensitively on issues of racism and diversity, and of prioritizing profits over the needs of junior employees and the local community. The complaints were part of an internal investigation that led to sweeping changes, including the ouster of the club’s chief executive, Michael Capiraso.
Now the far smaller organization is preparing to hold a far smaller version of the marathon, conducting the race for the first time in two years as its board continues to search for a permanent chief executive. That person will have to continue the work that began in recent months to reestablish what originally enabled the organization to become a dominant force in its sport — the fervent support of its members, its small but loyal work force and the trust of runners of all backgrounds throughout the city.
