{"id":325079,"date":"2026-08-19T17:22:26","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T17:22:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/325079\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T17:22:26","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T17:22:26","slug":"new-york-city-marathon-2026-conner-mantz-sifan-hassan-make-comebacks-defending-champions-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/325079\/","title":{"rendered":"New York City marathon 2026: Conner Mantz, Sifan Hassan make comebacks, defending champions return"},"content":{"rendered":"

The elite fields for the 2026 New York City marathon have been announced.<\/p>\n

American record-holder Conner Mantz set to make his injury comeback in the men\u2019s event, while the women\u2019s field is headlined by Olympic champion\u00a0Sifan Hassan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Last year\u2019s men\u2019s winner Benson Kipruto and women\u2019s champion Hellen Obiri will also attempt to retain their respective titles.<\/p>\n

The November 1 race will be Mantz\u2019s first over the distance since running 2:04:43 for fourth place in Chicago last October, when he became the first U.S. man to break two hours and five minutes, bettering Khalid Khannouchi\u2019s mark from 2002.<\/p>\n

Mantz, 29, was forced to withdraw from the Boston marathon in April because of a sacral stress fracture (at the base of the spine). The Brigham Young University graduate missed out on favourable conditions that led to John Korir breaking the course record with a 2:01:52 run.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe injuries have definitely changed how I\u2019m heading into this,\u201d Mantz told reporters. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to be more cautious. It\u2019s more (about) executing a race (strategy) and staying healthy than it is pushing all these workouts and mileage. The goal is to get to the start line 100 per cent healthy and see what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mantz has the ninth-fastest PR of the 42-strong men\u2019s field, which features four more national-record holders and nine other men with sub-2:05 bests. He is vying for a first major marathon podium at his seventh attempt.<\/p>\n

In the 31-strong women\u2019s field, versatile distance athlete Hassan<\/a>, 33, returns having not raced since this marathon last year. The Ethiopian-born Dutch runner is the fourth-fastest marathoner of all-time with a best of 2:13:44, but pulled out of London in April because of an achilles problem.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Hassan won three medals at Paris 2024 (Franck Fife\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

\u201cThe course was very hard, and the positive part was (that) the crowd was very loud,\u201d she said of her 2:24:43 run for sixth, which left her four minutes off the podium. \u201cNext time I don\u2019t need that much caffeine because it will get more crazy. New York last year really tested me. I pushed so hard and I was really suffering a lot. This year I will prepare better.\u201d<\/p>\n

The wheelchair divisions include Swiss athletes Marcel Hug and Catherine Debrunner, winners of the men\u2019s and women\u2019s races in London this year. Hug, a seven-time Olympic champion, has won in New York seven times, including four of the last five years.<\/p>\n

Debrunner, the world-record holder and fastest ever in New York (1:39:32 in 2023), will have to contend with home favourite Tatyana McFadden, the 2025 runner-up and a five-time winner. McFadden holds the quickest PR in the division (1:31:30) and has won 24 major marathons.<\/p>\n

The defending champions<\/p>\n

The 2025 men\u2019s champion Kipruto, a four-time major winner and ninth on the all-time list (2:02:16), is attempting to become the first man since Geoffrey Mutai in 2013 to claim consecutive New York titles. \u201cI\u2019m coming well prepared for the last kick,\u201d the 35-year-old said, having beaten fellow Kenyan Alexander Mutiso in a photo finish last time.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Kipruto (left) beat Mutiso by only centimeters in the last edition of the race (Ishika Samant\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Women\u2019s champion Obiri, meanwhile debuted in New York in 2022 and is a two-time winner, including last year when she broke the course record (2:19:51). The Kenyan, 36, ran her personal best in London in April (2:15:53s), losing out to Tigst Assefa, who beat her in a sprint finish to set a women\u2019s-only world-record.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am happy because New York has been like my home, I know everything about the course,\u201d Obiri said. She added that her training is closely replicating the elevation profile of the course, with its hills.<\/p>\n

Ones to watch<\/p>\n

U.S. runner Zouhair Talbi\u00a0 will also race in New York. It will be his second marathon of the year after a fifth-place run in Boston. His 2:03:45 Boston time stands as the fastest by a U.S. man in all conditions (Boston is not record-eligible because of its elevation profile and point-to-point course).<\/p>\n

He will be joined by Great Britain\u2019s Patrick Dever, who came fourth last year on his marathon debut, and was upgraded to the podium when Kenya\u2019s Albert Korir subsequently tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug.<\/p>\n

European 10,000m gold medallist Andreas Almgren is also one to watch, having broken a championship record which had stood since 1978 this month. He holds the European half-marathon record (58:41 in Valencia).<\/p>\n

Jess McClain is the leading American woman among the field. The Stanford graduate, 34, holds a PR of 2:20:49. She made her major marathon debut at New York in 2024, and said: \u201cI was just overwhelmed by the greatness and didn\u2019t really know what my ceiling was.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having finished fifth at Boston as the top U.S. athlete, McClain says she\u2019s \u201cthinking bigger than that. How can I get on the podium?\u201d<\/p>\n

The wildcard in the women\u2019s field is Weini Kelati, 29, who is making her marathon debut. \u201cThis is the right moment and the right place to do it,\u201d the Eritrean-born American said, stepping up following a track career which included a national 10,000m title at the 2024 Olympic trials, and an eighth-place finish at the Games in Paris. Kelati broke the U.S. half marathon record in Barcelona this February, running 1:06:04 for second place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The elite fields for the 2026 New York City marathon have been announced. American record-holder Conner Mantz set…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":325080,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[15558,9,11,10,15559],"class_list":["post-325079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-global-sports","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-olympics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/325080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}