Run Ottawa has released the elite start lists for the 2026 Tamarack Homes Ottawa International Marathon, naming a deep international and domestic field for the 24 May race that doubles as the Athletics Canada national marathon championship. Ethiopia's Shura Kitata returns to the top of the men's start sheet alongside compatriot Asrar Hiyrden, with both men carrying personal bests of 2:03:59. Canadian record holder Rory Linkletter (2:06:04) and a string of 2:06 and 2:07 Ethiopians stack the chasing pack, giving Ottawa the strongest men's field in the race's recent history.
Linkletter's pairing with Natasha Wodak as the Canadian headliners formalises the home pitch the organisers have built around since announcing the elites in late April. Wodak, the national women's marathon record holder, races her first marathon since the autumn and lines up against an Ethiopian-led international field that will fight for the $24,000 winner's share. Five additional Canadian elites have been named alongside Linkletter and Wodak, including Canadian Running's John Gay, who steps up to make his marathon debut on home soil after a winter of half-marathon work.
Among the deeper Canadian women, Élissa Legault has the form to make a national-team statement at this year's race. The 2023 Canadian half-marathon champion ran a 2:29:05 personal best at Valencia in December, then dropped a 1:11:25 half-marathon best in March, sequencing a build that should put her firmly in the conversation for top Canadian finisher. Behind her, the chase for the third national-team spot toward Glasgow's autumn road races has drawn a deeper-than-usual provincial field for a championship-status edition of the race.
Race weekend opens on Saturday 23 May with the 10K national championship and a packed schedule of 5K and 2K events, all routed through the Ottawa city core. The marathon and half-marathon then go off from City Hall on Laurier Avenue at 7am on Sunday, looping around Confederation Park and through Hintonburg, the Glebe and Rockcliffe Park before finishing back on Elgin. Organisers expect 32,000 entries across the weekend, the largest registration since the race weekend's pre-pandemic peak.
Ottawa is one of two World Athletics Elite Label road marathons in Canada and the only one to combine that designation with national championship status, which has historically attracted Canadian Olympic Trial qualifying performances and a thicker imported field than the race's spring placement on the calendar might otherwise produce. With the 2027 World Championships in Beijing increasingly framing the late-spring marathon scene, Ottawa's role as a national-championship platform makes the next three weeks a useful guide to where the Canadian marathon depth chart sits heading into autumn.