New York City Marathon 2026: start times, favourites and how to watch

The 2026 New York City Marathon is run today, Sunday 1 November, and in Spain the elite race begins at 14:35 with the women’s start; the men go half an hour later, at 15:05 (8:35 and 9:05 a.m. in New York). Eurosport 1 shows it live in Spain from 14:30. It is the 55th edition and the one that celebrates 50 years of the five-borough course, the route that turned a race of laps around Central Park into the biggest marathon on the planet.

The two defending champions, Kenya’s Hellen Obiri and Benson Kipruto, put their titles on the line in a race with no pacemakers and a course that punishes more than the clock does. The withdrawals of Sifan Hassan and Fiona O’Keeffe thin out the women’s race; the men’s, by contrast, arrives with a depth rarely seen on Staten Island.

Start times, in New York and in Spain

The United States changed its clocks overnight, so today the gap with mainland Spain is six hours. The day opens at 8:00 a.m. (14:00 in Spain) with the men’s wheelchair start, followed by the women’s two minutes later. The pro women leave Fort Wadsworth, beside the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, at 8:35 a.m., and the pro men at 9:05 a.m. From 9:10 a.m. the waves of recreational runners follow one another, the last at 11:30 a.m.

On that schedule, the women’s race should be decided around 10:55 a.m. (16:55 in Spain) and the men’s shortly after 11:10 a.m. The forecast points to a cool, clear morning in New York, with temperatures around 9 degrees Celsius at the start and a light north-westerly wind, comfortable for running if not necessarily for fast times on a course that never makes it easy.

Obiri goes for a third crown

Hellen Obiri arrives as the clear favourite. She won in 2023, won again in 2025 with the course record of 2:19:51, and has since added victory at the New York City Half and a personal best of 2:15:53 as runner-up in London. The Kenyan, a former track star with a lethal finish, is chasing a third title that very few women have in their record.

Her most direct rival is Sheila Chepkirui, the only woman to beat her here in recent years: she did it in 2024, when Obiri was second. The field also includes Ethiopia’s Gotytom Gebreslase, the 2022 world marathon champion, veteran Edna Kiplagat, winner in 2010, and Uruguay’s Julia Paternain, bronze medallist at the 2025 World Championships. The United States pins its hopes on the debut of Weini Kelati, the national half marathon record holder, and on Jess McClain, both eyeing an American women’s podium that has been elusive since 2018.

Kipruto faces the deepest field

Benson Kipruto won last year by three hundredths of a second over Alexander Mutiso, the closest finish in the race’s history, and a repeat would make him one of the few men to win back-to-back in New York. He faces two former champions, Geoffrey Kamworor, winner in 2017 and 2019, and the Netherlands’ Abdi Nageeye, who won in 2024, plus Ethiopia’s Deresa Geleta, making his New York debut with a best of 2:02:38.

American interest centres on the duel between Conner Mantz and Zouhair Talbi, the two fastest marathoners in the country’s history, while Europe watches Sweden’s Andreas Almgren, the continental half marathon record holder, who steps up to 42 kilometres for the first time. Italy’s Yemaneberhan Crippa and Iliass Aouani and Japan’s Kengo Suzuki complete the list. Almgren summed it up at the pre-race press conference: it might be the deepest field in New York City Marathon history.

The men’s course record, 2:04:58 by Ethiopia’s Tamirat Tola in 2023, stands as the benchmark. Breaking it would require a fast race from the gun, something unusual in an event without pacemakers, where the leading pack tends to watch itself until First Avenue.

A course won in the second half

The marathon leaves Staten Island over the Verrazzano, the longest climb of the day, and runs some 20 kilometres through Brooklyn before entering Queens. Around kilometre 25 comes the Queensboro Bridge, long and silent, and then First Avenue in Manhattan, where the noise of the crowd returns all at once. After a brief foray into the Bronx, the run down Fifth Avenue and the final rollers of Central Park almost always decide the race.

That is why New York rewards patience more than pure speed. The bridges break the rhythm, the road undulates for kilometres and the final stretch, with the park already in sight, feels endless for anyone who spent too much in Brooklyn. The picture of the Verrazzano packed with runners is the postcard of the day; the race itself, however, is written from kilometre 30 onwards.

Fifty years of five boroughs

The first New York City Marathon, in 1970, was run in laps of Central Park, with 127 starters and 55 finishers. In 1976 the race left the park and crossed Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Manhattan for the first time, and that change turned it into a city-wide celebration. Half a century later, the 2025 edition closed with 59,226 finishers, the highest number ever recorded at a marathon, and the 2026 drawing received more than 240,000 applications.

Today tens of thousands will line up at the start again, and the anniversary promises one of those afternoons that explain why this marathon is on almost every runner’s list. If it is your dream for the future, our New York City Marathon 2027 guide covers the date, fees and ways to get a bib, and in when is the New York Marathon held we explain why it always falls in early November.