Women’s 2025 London Marathon Preview
“I feel like every time I write about a marathon these days, I’m exclaiming how stacked the field is. Perhaps I need to be more conservative with that term going forward because this year’s women’s race is unbelievably deep and truly something we have not seen for a very long time, if ever.”
I wrote those words this time last year when putting together my 2024 London Marathon preview. Like many before me, I didn’t think history would repeat itself.
In a way, it hasn’t. Somehow, the women’s 2025 London Marathon has kicked the 2024 women’s London Marathon’s butt. What was the deepest field in history just 12 months ago has been eclipsed by a field of no less than six sub-2:17 women. To put that in perspective, as recently as three years ago, only two sub-2:17 women existed.
Granted, we now have a smorgasbord of 17 from which to choose, but securing six of them – including the three fastest women in history – is something that has never been done before.
Peres Jepchirchir (L), Joyciline Jepkosgei (M), and Tigst Assefa (R) lead the 2024 London Marathon
The Record Breakers
Last year, the London Marathon served as Tigst Assefa’s encore. Having shattered the world record in Berlin in her previous race, the running world was eager to see whether anyone could hang with history’s first sub-2:12 woman.
They could. Olympic Marathon champion (at the time) Peres Jepchirchir beat Assefa to the line by seven seconds to break the women’s-only marathon world record*, with Assefa barely outkicking Joyciline Jepkosgei to finish runner-up. It was the first of two marathons she would lose by a handful of seconds in 2024, with the Ethiopian finishing just three seconds shy of Olympic gold in Paris four months later.
When Assefa returns to the English capital later this month, she will have the unfortunate appendage of the word “former” added to her most famous achievement. A similar stage is being set, but she is no longer in the leading role. History’s first sub-2:10 woman and current marathon world record holder, Ruth Chepng'etich, will instead be in the spotlight as the running world now waits to see what she can do for her encore.
Chepng'etich is an athlete who embodies the saying, “go big or go home”. In the last four years, she has broken the half marathon world record, finished more than eight minutes behind the winner of last year’s London Marathon, broken the marathon world record by almost two minutes, dropped out of the Olympic and World Championship marathons mid-race, and won the Chicago Marathon three times. She’s run slower than 2:20 as many times as she’s run faster than 2:15, making her an impossible quantity to predict. Even her 1:06:20 half marathon in Lisbon last month – the only indicator of her form – has been rendered useless by historical precedent. You might think that a 2:09 woman running at 2:12 pace for a half marathon and not even winning would be concerning six weeks out from the London Marathon, until you remember that she ran 1:05:58 six weeks before Chicago last year and won that race by almost seven minutes. Maybe she thrives off of running an aggressively mediocre half marathon in her build-up?
Ruth Chepng’etich after breaking the marathon world record
The Defending Champion
A far more consistent runner exists in Peres Jepchirchir. The Kenyan won this race last year in a new personal best and women’s-only marathon world record, a nice addition to the women’s-only half marathon world record she’s held since 2020. Her win in the English capital extended her career-long streak of never finishing off a marathon podium to eleven years, but an uncharacteristically poor performance in Paris saw that streak come to an end when she crossed the line in 15th, unable to defend the Olympic title she had won in Japan three years prior.
Luckily for Jepchirchir, marathon running isn’t cricket, which means you aren’t only as good as your last innings. Six wins in six years, an Olympic Marathon title, and the women’s-only half and full marathon world records are more than enough to excuse an off-day on a hilly course in the Parisian summer. I expect the Kenyan to put up a fierce fight later this month as she attempts to become the third woman from her country to successfully defend a London Marathon title.
The Nearly-Women
That last sentence is one that will irk Joyciline Jepkosgei, who fell short of that very achievement in 2022. Having skilfully deconstructed the London field in 2021 to win her second World Marathon Major, the Kenyan found herself unable to hang on to Yalemzerf Yehualaw the following year, ultimately finishing 41 seconds adrift of the Ethiopian.
Her performances since then are perhaps best described as having fallen off the world’s tiniest cliff. She has consistently registered career-worst performances, but the bar was so high to begin with that it’s been hard to criticise. She was first in London in 2021, second in 2022, and third last year for her worst finish at this race to date. Similarly, she was fourth in Chicago in 2023 but dropped to fifth in 2024, and at the 2023 Boston Marathon, she only managed twelfth – five places lower than the year prior. These minor drop-offs mean little in isolation, but viewed together tell an unfortunate (but hardly catastrophic) story. Jepkosgei has not won a marathon in four years, and while she has run half and full marathon personal bests in the last 12 months, she seems to have improved at a slower rate than her rivals. Nevertheless, the Kenyan will be hoping to use the race at which she has had the most success to reverse her fortunes, and a win against a field this deep will do just that.
Joyciline Jepkosgei wins the 2021 London Marathon
Another woman who loves to run in London is Mergetu Alemu, who has finished fifth, fourth, third, and second in this race. Running coaches love to proclaim that consistency trumps all, so it would be nice to see Alemu finally triumph in a World Marathon Major. Apart from an unfortunate DNF at the Paris Olympics, the Ethiopian has enjoyed a remarkably stable marathon career these last three years. She’s broken 2:19 in all six marathons she’s competed in since 2022 (including two sub-2:17 clockings last year), finished third, second, third, and fourth in the four World Marathon Majors she’s raced and won in Seville and Valencia (the next best thing to a World Marathon Major). In a sport that always highlights the breakthrough performances, Alemu serves as a reminder that the marathon is unforgiving to most, and the most reliable path to success is simply to try and grind your way to the top, literally step-by-step. A maiden World Marathon Majors win after almost a decade at the front of international races in the city she most loves to compete in would make for a beautiful moment, and while I don’t think she’s the favourite, I would be a fool to rule her out.
Mergetu Alemu during the 2024 London Marathon
The Favourite
And then, there’s Sifan Hassan. The Ethiopian-born Dutch superstar made her marathon debut in 2023, winning the London Marathon despite having to stop on multiple occasions to stretch out her hamstrings. In true Sifan Hassan fashion, she then turned her attention back to the track, winning World Championship medals in the 1500m and 5000m in Budapest later that year. Never one to rest on her already ridiculous number of laurels, she was back on the roads not six weeks later in Chicago, where she ran 2:13:44 to become the second-fastest woman in history and win her second marathon in as many starts.
Her first and only loss in the marathon came last year in Tokyo, where she just missed the podium, but she rebounded spectacularly to win the Olympic Marathon in a new Olympic record, just 36 hours after claiming bronze in the 10,000m and not a week after also coming third in the 5000m.
It’s quite the resume, and it has everyone asking: what can the elite field at London do to beat Hassan later this month? I don’t have the answer, and I doubt any of her competitors do either. Hassan has beaten every woman in this preview in the last 18 months, is the Olympic champion, and is a 2:13 woman with a ridiculous career-average finish time of 2:18:19. She’s also got what has proven to be an unbeatable finishing kick on the roads, courtesy of the incredible track speed that has carried her to world records in events as short as the mile and Olympic track medals as recently as last August. This is the strongest field ever assembled in women’s marathon running history, and yet, such is the talent of Hassan that I fully expect her to embarrass the lot of them.
Sifan Hassan after winning the 2024 Olympic Marathon
To read my preview of the men’s race, click here.
*World Athletics recognises two women’s marathon world records: one run in an open race with male pacemakers and one run with only women. For example, Berlin starts the men and women at the same time, making any records set there outright world records. Meanwhile, London starts the elite women well before the men, creating a women’s-only race and making it eligible for the world record of the same name.