Kenya's Elvis Cheboi powered to a four-second victory over Ethiopia's Gizealew Ayana to take the 2026 Tamarack Ottawa Marathon in 2:09:22, capping a Wellington Street sprint that resolved a tight lead pack only inside the final kilometre. Ayana stopped the clock at 2:09:26 with Canada's Rory Linkletter holding on for third in 2:09:43 on a cool, breezy Sunday in the capital that had favoured a sit-and-kick race almost from the gun.
The men's field had stayed largely intact through halfway in 1:04:50, a conservative split set by pacemakers working into a stiff northeasterly along the Rideau Canal section. The decisive moves came inside the final five kilometres, when Cheboi, Ayana and Linkletter pulled away from a six-strong group and traded surges through Confederation Park before Cheboi opened a stride entering the final straight and refused to give it back.
For Linkletter the third-place finish improves on his runner-up showing in 2025 and gives Canada a podium in the men's race for a second consecutive year. The Calgary-based Olympian had told reporters at Friday's press conference that he wanted to convert his fitness from the spring's Stanford Invitational track block into a clear improvement on his 2:09:38 from a year ago, and his 2:09:43 here came inside the cluster of times that have defined his marathon form since Tokyo.
Ethiopia's Abeba Aregawi took the women's race in 2:23:12, but the storyline of the women's field belonged to Natasha Wodak. Returning to the marathon for the first time since Tokyo, the Canadian national record holder finished second outright in 2:33:15 and crossed the line as the first masters woman over 40 in the field — a result that doubles as the fastest masters time by a North American woman this spring. Ethiopia's Tahir Kuftu (2:25:33) and Kenya's Betty Chepkorir (2:25:51) rounded out the women's top three behind Aregawi, with Wodak placing ahead of both on the live order before the splits resolved on the official sheet.
Run Ottawa reported a sold-out 12,000-runner mass field rolling out behind the elites under 9°C skies that held to the long-range forecast, with the wheelchair and para-athletics fields completing without incident. The Tamarack Ottawa Marathon now closes a Race Weekend that produced a Canadian 10K Championships on Saturday and three days of community 2K, 5K and family events; attention for the Canadian elite group turns next to the Toronto and Edmonton summer windows and, for Linkletter, a likely autumn build toward Chicago.