Hannah Storm won’t be on site for ESPN and ABC’s coverage of the New York City Marathon on Sunday. The longtime SportsCenter anchor revealed this week that she’s still recovering from a hysterectomy, and that the surgery has left her cancer-free.
In a statement posted to X on Wednesday, Storm said she had been aiming to return in time for the race until her doctors advised her to take a little more time to recover, so she’ll be cheering on her “ESPN/ABC NYC Marathon family” from her living room instead.
https://t.co/8SdB08nMjj
— Hannah Storm (@HannahStormESPN) October 28, 2026
“Most importantly, I’m very grateful to be cancer-free after undergoing a hysterectomy,” Storm wrote.
Roughly two and a half years earlier, Storm revealed on Good Morning America that she had been diagnosed with DCIS breast cancer, an early form of the disease detected through a routine mammogram despite her having no family history or genetic predisposition. Her radiologist delivered the diagnosis on Jan. 11, 2024, the same day Bill Belichick and the Patriots parted ways, and Storm persevered through one of the most hectic NFL news cycles of the year before undergoing a lumpectomy on Feb. 1. She continued working throughout her recovery and later became an impassioned advocate for early detection, urging women not to neglect their annual screenings.
Storm had been using her platform to champion medical causes long before her own cancer diagnosis, dating back to 2008, when she founded the Hannah Storm Foundation to raise awareness and fund treatment for children with vascular anomalies — a condition she was born with. She also became a prominent advocate for burn survivors after enduring second-degree burns in a propane grill accident at her home in 2012. Those efforts were a driving force behind her selection for the 2025 Pat Summerall Award, which she accepted at Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans as only the second woman to receive the honor, following Erin Andrews.
Storm’s recovery interrupts a banner year at ESPN, which welcomed her back to the WNBA nearly three decades after she served as the play-by-play voice of the league’s inaugural game on NBC in 1997. In May, the network announced that Storm would rotate as a host of WNBA Countdown and contribute reported features to the pregame show and SportsCenter.
Storm didn’t specify when she expects to return to the anchor desk, though she signed off her statement with a promise that suggests she doesn’t plan to be away for long.
“See y’all soon on SportsCenter!”