Sheila Chepkirui of Kenya won the women’s race of the New York City Marathon on Sunday for the second time, while Sweden’s Andreas Almgren claimed the men’s title in his first race over that distance. Almgren was making his 26.2-mile debut after a successful career running half marathons and 10,000 meters. He pulled away from Italian Yemaneberhan Crippa in the final kilometer to take the victory in two hours, six minutes and one second. Crippa finished 13 seconds behind. Kamohelo Mofolo of Lesotho was third, beating defending champion Benson Kipruto. “I’ve probably never felt so excited after a race,” Almgren said. “With 5 km left I felt like I had my legs today… I saw that I had a pretty big gap [near the end of the race] and he thought, ‘OK, just enjoy these last few hundred meters,’ because this isn’t something a lot of people get to experience.” Almgren looked to be a veteran of the distance as he held on with a packed leader group through the demanding, hilly course. He pulled away from defending champion Kipruto with a mile to go and had built such a comfortable lead in the final few meters that he jogged across the line, waving his arms as he drew more cheers from the crowd. “This is my first marathon. I didn’t know how I was supposed to feel,” Almgren said. Chepkirui, who also won the race in 2024, pulled away from compatriot Hellen Obiri in the last 150 meters to seal the victory in 2:24.36. “The last mile was really tough, I knew I had to be patient because Hellen was very strong, so I had to push really hard to the finish line,” Chepkirui said. “I’m really happy.” McClain finished second in the women’s race, passing two-time winner Obiri in the closing stages. It was the first time an American woman finished in the top three since 2018. McClain was six seconds behind Chepkirui “It was a really fun, magical day,” McClain said “I didn’t really feel very good during the 18 miles. I just had to keep going. I really don’t know what happened, but I couldn’t be happier right now.” Marcel Hug won the men’s wheelchair race for the eighth time, beating Daniel Romanchuk by just over a second. Romanchuk made a move to take the lead in the final mile as the pair entered Central Park for the final time. Hug passed him down the stretch to win. Catherine Debrunner pulled away from the field early to win the women’s wheelchair race, finishing in 1:40:02. She was second best time in the race’s history, about 30 seconds off her own mark since 2023. Two-time defending champion Susannah Scaroni finished third, three months after giving birth to her first child, more than eight minutes behind Debrunner. It was the fiftieth time the race passed through the city’s five boroughs. There were just over 2,000 competitors in the seventh edition of the race – 88 women, around 60,000 runners. They took the starting line on Sunday, almost half of them women.
