Three days before the 46th TCS London Marathon sets off from Blackheath and Greenwich Park, the race has settled into the kind of shape that organisers hope for but rarely get. The weather is tracking to a cool 15C with a five per cent chance of rain, the elite fields are intact after a nervous March of injury scares, the expo at ExCeL has been running without queues since Wednesday's opening, and Sunday's forecast for a record 59,000 mass-field starters looks about as benign as a London spring morning gets. Attention now moves to the narrower questions of pace, wind and which of the men's field will commit first to chasing Kelvin Kiptum's 2:01:25 course record.
The men's race has narrowed to Sebastian Sawe versus Jacob Kiplimo, with Joshua Cheptegei, Tamirat Tola, Yomif Kejelcha and Amos Kipruto all capable of turning the race on its head if the pace drops. Sawe, the 2025 champion, told Thursday's pre-race press conference that the forecast had changed his plan: if it stays cool and dry, he will run from the front from halfway and push for the course record. Kiplimo, who made his marathon debut here last April with a Ugandan record 2:03:37, has openly said he expects the winner to go sub-2:02 and that he is better prepared than a year ago. Pace-makers have been briefed to target a 60:45 halfway split, a rhythm that in 2023 took Kiptum inside world-record pace before he eased in the final miles.
On the women's side, Tigst Assefa arrives as the defending champion and women's-only world-record holder from last year's 2:15:50 on this course. Her rivals list is deep: Joyciline Jepkosgei, fresh from a 2:14:00 in Valencia; Hellen Obiri on a long-awaited marathon return to London; and Megertu Alemu, who ran 2:16:34 in Berlin last autumn. Both Sifan Hassan and Peres Jepchirchir withdrew earlier this month, reshaping the podium maths without removing the sub-2:15 ambition that Assefa's team has been briefing since February. The conditions favour another assault on the women's-only world record, and at 15C Assefa has the resume and the raw horsepower to make the attempt stick.
The British storyline has become a subplot after Emile Cairess's withdrawal with a calf injury, announced on 15 April and the second consecutive year he has been forced out on the eve of the race. Phily Bowden and Rose Harvey lead the British women's entries with genuine top-ten hopes, while Mahamed Mahamed and Jake Smith carry the best British men's chances in the absence of Cairess. Alex Yee, who had been scheduled to pace Cairess for 30 kilometres, will now run the full distance as a development outing rather than a support role. Mo Farah, scheduled to run his final London Marathon in a mass-field role, has maintained that he will not be racing for time and intends to mingle with fans between Canary Wharf and The Mall.
Off the course, organisers are preparing for a logistical peak on Saturday as the mass field completes bib collection at ExCeL before Sunday's 9:30 a.m. mass-wave start. Transport for London has confirmed the full closure list for Sunday, with the DLR running a Sunday timetable and Waterloo, Victoria, London Bridge and Canary Wharf stations preparing for crowd controls. The TCS London Marathon Running Show at ExCeL continues through Saturday evening, with over a hundred exhibitors, the traditional celebrity Q&As, and a product-launch slot for Asics and Adidas that will show the first retail-ready units of their next-generation marathon racing shoes. Three days out, the 2026 race has the settled feel of an event that has put its off-course housekeeping behind it and is ready to run.