Sir Mo Farah will return to The Mall on Sunday in an official capacity for the first time since his 2024 retirement, with London Marathon Events confirming on Tuesday evening that the four-time Olympic champion will serve as an official starter of the 46th TCS London Marathon alongside England rugby union star Ellie Kildunne. The pair will send away the elite wheelchair field, the elite women, and the men's and mass field from Blackheath, before joining race organisers on the gantry at The Mall to welcome the leaders home. It is a ceremonial role, but a symbolic one — and organisers have made clear it is meant to reintroduce Farah to a London crowd that last saw him compete here in 2019.
For Farah himself, the starter's gun closes an unusual loop. He ran his final competitive race at the Great North Run in September 2024 and has kept a deliberately low public profile in the 18 months since, with only occasional appearances at school events and ambassador work for his foundation. Friends have suggested a slow return to public athletics life is part of a longer-term plan; a formal coaching or mentoring role at British Athletics has been rumoured but not confirmed. Starting the race from which he drew some of his most famous non-track results — including the 2018 London third place that underpinned his move to the marathon — is an appropriately understated first step back.
Kildunne, the reigning World Rugby Player of the Year, adds a different kind of star power. She will line up against Wales on Saturday afternoon in a Six Nations fixture at the Principality Stadium, before travelling overnight to London for the 9:00 women's wheelchair start. London Marathon Events has made a conscious effort this cycle to pull in talent from beyond athletics — women's football and rugby have both been courted — and the governing body of Rugby Football Union has described the appointment as a small but meaningful boost during a year in which the women's game is trying to capitalise on post-World Cup momentum. Kildunne told organisers she had been a "silent fan" of the marathon since watching her grandmother volunteer on the course in 2017.
The announcement arrives in a race week already crowded with build-up, from Sabastian Sawe's defence to the expected 59,000 mass-race starters and the latest leg of Marcel Hug's pursuit of David Weir's record eight London wheelchair wins. Tuesday's second big headline came hours later, with Emile Cairess's late withdrawal due to a calf injury puncturing the domestic men's story, and Farah's presence on the gantry will inevitably invite questions about the future of the British marathon at a moment when Cairess, Patrick Dever, Mahamed Mahamed and Phil Sesemann are each expected to threaten the 2:05:11 national record Farah set in Chicago in 2018. The starter has spent recent weeks quietly nudging journalists towards that depth story rather than his own.
The practical choreography for Sunday is straightforward. The elite wheelchair women start at 8:50, the elite wheelchair men at 8:55, the elite women at 9:05 and the combined elite men and first mass wave at 9:35. Farah and Kildunne will handle all four starts in turn, crossing between gantries in the Blackheath paddock before being driven into central London for the finish. It is a quietly elegant piece of matchmaking — a four-time Olympic champion and a rugby World Cup nominee introducing 59,000 runners to the city they are about to cross — and a reminder that, whatever else this London Marathon becomes, Sunday will also be Sir Mo Farah's first morning back on a start line he once dominated.