London Marathon 2024 Live: Latest updates as Tigst Assefa looks to break course record

It’s Marcel Hug in front with Daniel Romanchuk for company. David Weir has been dropped and is in third along with Japan’s Suzuki, those two need to work together. 

In the women’s race Switzerland’s Catherine Debrunner has pulled clear in the women’s wheelchair race. She’s reeling in some of the slower male runners.

Are leading the bunch but already the pace is quick, Assefa is looking good, as you would expect. 

And the lead group is already splintered into three groups. 

Will the course record go? Tigst Assefa certainly thinks it will go today in what has been called ‘the best field ever for thr women’s London Marathon’ and ‘harder to win than this summer’s Olympics’. 

The ones to look out for along with Assefa, are Brigud Kosgei (two-time winner in London), Ruth Chepngetich, Tigist Ketema and Megertu Alemu. 

Eastenders actors Emma Barton and Jamie Borthwick will be running today, but as their characters Honey and Jay...they have certain spots they have to be on the route and those scenes will be in tomorrow’s episode. 

This is more akin to cycling than running, you can draft etc. It’s not as punishing as the running (though I am not sure how my arms would take a 26.2 mile race in a wheelchair...), hence you can do a marathon in Boston one week and then race in London the next. 

In the women’s race Britain’s Eden Rainbow-Cooper is the favorite, having won in Boston on Monday. She is facing four former winners of this race so the field is stacked. 

In the men’s race David Weir will be looking to add to his eight victories in this race. He was third in Boston and his main rival will be Marcel Hug. The Swiss won all six majors last year and again will be the man to beat. 

AKA Russ Cook is running today. This should be like a walk in a park for Cook who, as I am sure you know, has just run the length of Africa. His number is 14136 is you want to follow him on the app...

READ: ‘Hardest Geezer’ completes momentous run along length of Africa

The London Marathon is about so much more than the professionals running jaw-dropping times. So we’ll also be checking in on the ‘fun’ runners (from personal experience, not sure there’s much fun to be had during a marathon...) every one who’ll likely have their own inspiring story – what got them to the start line? Who and what are they running for? This is one of the most beautiful sporting events around, one where you can park your cynicism and simply applaud all those taking part. 

One of those tackling the 26.2 miles is Nathaniel Dye. The former ultra-runner was diagnosed with stage four bowel cancer in 2022 and has not trained beyond a 5km Park Run. 

Here’s his moving and inspiring story. 

READ: ‘I have terminal cancer, but I will run the London Marathon playing a trombone’

The London Marathon route follows its usual course, starting in Greenwich and Blackheath where entrants are split into three lines which converge at the three-mile mark. The route heads east into Woolwich, then back west towards Greenwich town centre, through Rotherhithe and Bermondsey. From there it crosses north over Tower Bridge, which signals the approximate halfway mark. Athletes then complete a circuit around Canary Wharf and the Isle of Dogs before the course runs west along the north bank of the Thames past the Tower of London towards Trafalgar Square and onto the Mall where it finishes in front of Buckingham Palace.

To download a map of the course, click here.

Some of London’s most famous landmarks feature on the course.

• Cutty Stark, mile six
• Tower Bridge, mile 12
• Canary Wharf, miles 15 and 18
• Tower of London, mile 22
• London Eye, mile 25
• Big Ben, mile 25
• Buckingham Palace, mile 26

• The elite and wheelchair races set off at staggered times, with the elite wheelchair men’s and women’s races getting under way at 9.05am. 
• The elite women’s race starts at 9.25am, while the elite men hit the road at 10am. 
• The masses also start at 10am, in waves until 11.30am.

Emile Cairess will lead the host nation’s hopes in the elite men’s race, having finished sixth on his debut last year.

Cairess is aiming to better the Olympic qualifying mark to join training partner Phil Sesemann in the Team GB squad for Paris.

The 26-year-old, though, also has one eye on a long-term target of breaking Sir Mo Farah’s six-year-old British marathon record, which was set in Chicago.

“I have a time in my head. I will be trying to run maybe about three-minute kilometres,” Cairess said.

“Mo’s British record is something I definitely want to beat in the near future, but I am not looking at that this weekend.”

There’s a line towards the end of Shawshank Redemption uttered by Red, the one film character I defy anyone to dislike (if you do dislike him, then I despair...) where he utters: “Seriously, how often do you look at a man’s shoes?”

It’s a line that that I have often thought about since I first watched the celebrated film and – unless you happen to be wearing pointy, black school shoes with the laces on the side – the answer from me is “not that much”.

But that won’t be possible today when a lot, if not all, the talk will be of shoes. Yep, technology has come to long-distance running with spectacular results and there is talk of records possibly being broken today.

Tigst Assefa wore the now almost mythical Adidas Adios Adizero Pro Evo 1 carbon running shoes (nice pithy name there) for her world record run in Berlin last year. The Ethiopian crossed the line in 2hr 11min 53sec, shaving more than two minutes off Brigid Kosgei’s 2019 landmark of 2hr 14min 04sec. A former 800m specialist, Assefa only raced the marathon for the first time two years ago before winning the 2022 Berlin race with what was then the third fastest women’s run in history.

Kosgei’s record, which itself beat Paula Radcliffe’s 2003 world record of 2hr 15min 25sec, was also set in the era of the new super-cushioned carbon-plated shoes that emerged in 2016 with Nike’s Vaporfly and then Alphafly innovations.

Today, Assefa is out at the very least to break at least one record, the course record.

“I am very happy to be in London for the first time,” the 27 year old said. “I did train very well for Berlin and I have trained well for this one. God will show how good I am on Sunday.

“I have prepared very well for this race and I am sure I can beat the course record here. As I am sure all my competitors here will feel as well. Regardless of whether it is London or Berlin, it will not change my strategy at all.

“I am here to win.”

In the men’s race shoes will also be a key factor. But last year’s winner Kelvin Kiptum will not be at the start line after his tragic death in a car crash in February. The Kenyan broke the course record with a time of  2hr 1min 25sec last year. The London Marathon will honour the Kenyan in a series of tributes today.

In his absence Tamirat Tola starts as favourite and, having won in New York last autumn, the Ethiopian feels a carefully planned build-up will give him every chance of adding the London Marathon title to his Stateside success.

The 32-year-old locked a new course record of two hours, four minutes and 58 seconds when he won in Manhattan and has high hopes of another fast time in the UK capital.

”[Winning in] London is not easy, but I worked hard to win New York and my training has all been OK since then, so I am ready,” said Tola, who also won the 2023 Great North Run title.

“Everything is good with what my coaches have prepared for me to win, so we can hope for a good result on Sunday.”

Stay here for all the action on London’s roads and watch out for those shoes...