British entries also include Jonny Mellor and Matt Leach for November 2 race
Eilish McColgan will try to build on her marathon debut in London this year, where she ran 2:24:25, by tackling the TCS New York City Marathon on November 2. She will also be following in the footsteps of her mother, Liz, won this race in 1991.
Fellow Brits who are set to do the event include Patrick Dever, Jess Warner-Judd and Charles Hicks, all of whom will be making their marathon debut, plus Jonny Mellor and Matt Leach.
McColgan holds the UK records at a number of distances up to the half-marathon and some feel she is capable of one day threatening Paula Radcliffe’s UK record of 2:15:25. New York, however is a notoriously slow course and has a policy of not using pacemakers.
Warner-Judd struggled with epilepsy last year but has eased back into action in 2025 and ran 37:21 last weekend in the Falmouth Road Race in the United States.
Hicks and Dever, meanwhile, enjoyed successful collegiate careers in the United States and have run well over 5000m and 10,000m in recent seasons so this is a big move up to the marathon distance for both of them.
Historically Dever has been neck and neck with Emile Cairess in track and cross-country races until recently, which bodes well for the Preston Harrier given how well Cairess has run over 26.2 miles lately, with fourth place in the Olympics among other things.
Elsewhere, the elite field in New York includes the four defending champions, nine additional former champions, 49 Olympians and Paralympians, plus 16 Olympic, Paralympic, and World Championships medallists.
Headlining the athlete field are the four defending champions in the men’s and women’s open and wheelchair divisions — Abdi Nageeye of the Netherlands, Sheila Chepkirui of Kenya and Daniel Romanchuk and Susannah Scaroni of the United States.
All four captured victories in 2024, with Nageeye becoming the first athlete from the Netherlands to win a men’s elite title, Chepkirui winning her first Abbott World Marathon Majors title while Romanchuk and Scaroni led an American sweep of the wheelchair division for the first time in event history.
The men’s open division will also include the 2021 and 2022 TCS New York City Marathon champions Albert Korir and Evans Chebet and feature the marathon debuts of US Olympians Hillary Bor and Joe Klecker.
For the first time since 2018, the women’s open division will feature the three most recent TCS New York City Marathon champions, as compatriots Hellen Obiri, the 2023 winner, and Sharon Lokedi, the 2022 victor, join Chepkirui. The field also includes American stars Fiona O’Keeffe, Molly Seidel, Emily Sisson and Susanna Sullivan.
Additional international contenders include Ethiopia’s Gotytom Gebreslase, a two-time World Championships medalist; Norway’s four-time Olympian Karoline Bjerkeli Grøvdal, who is making her TCS New York City Marathon debut after winning the 2024 United Airlines NYC Half; and Swiss Olympian and half marathon national record holder Fabienne Schlumpf.
Returning to the wheelchair division alongside Romanchuk and Scaroni are six-time New York City Marathon champion and course record holder Marcel Hug, five-time champion Tatyana McFadden, three-time champion Manuela Schär, plus champion and course record holder Catherine Debrunner.
Former NYC winner David Weir is also set to compete after finishing runner-up last year, plus fellow Brit Eden Rainbow-Cooper.
