Austria's Davide Zanetti pulled away from a tightly bunched lead group on Sunday morning to win the 2026 GoodLife Fitness Toronto Marathon in 2:25:08, while Kenyan-born Canadian Philes Ongori secured her second straight women's title in 2:40:36 on what organisers billed as one of the deepest domestic fields the race has seen in a decade. The 35th edition shut down a wide lattice of downtown streets from Mel Lastman Square to Ontario Place, with more than 26,000 entrants spread across the marathon, half-marathon, 10K and 5K races.
Zanetti's win came nine days after he placed fifth at the Vienna City Marathon, where he ran 2:14 and turned around quickly to chase a second spring win on a course that suited his rhythm-running style. The Salzburg-based runner moved decisively at 32 kilometres and held a metronomic pace through the rolling sections of Bayview Avenue to finish more than six minutes clear of American Rowan Shigeno, who took second in 2:31:19. Toronto's Alex Hutton was third in 2:35:15, his second sub-2:40 in the city after a 2:39 here in 2024.
In the women's race Ongori, who sought asylum in Canada in 2018 and now represents the Black Toe Running Club, surged on a long downhill stretch through Rosedale just past halfway to break a three-woman pack that had reached 21 kilometres in 1:18:09. The 2014 Toronto Waterfront Marathon champion crossed the line in 2:40:36 to claim her second straight Toronto Marathon, and her third overall on the city's start lines. Anna Carruthers of Creemore, Ontario was second in 2:43:20, with Saskatoon's Jen Millar rounding out the podium in 2:45:11.
The race weekend hosted Canada's National Marathon Championships and the Athletics Canada Olympic standard window, with eight Canadian men inside 2:25 and four women inside 2:50. Race director Jay Glassman told reporters at the finish that the field had been deliberately deepened in 2026 with a new sub-elite recruitment programme that paid travel costs for Canadian runners with sub-2:30 or sub-2:55 personal bests, an investment he said would continue into the 2027 race weekend.
Sunday's marathon also confirmed three new Canadian master's records and pushed the Toronto Marathon's combined finisher tally above 90,000 since the event was rebooted under its current ownership in 1990. Conditions were close to ideal at 6 degrees Celsius with light winds at the gun, conditions that race officials said had drawn one of the heaviest charity bibs cohorts in the event's history. Entries for the 2027 GoodLife Fitness Toronto Marathon, scheduled for 2 May 2027, will open later this month.