Benson Kipruto, the 2024 Paris Olympic bronze medalist in the marathon, is –by at least one measure– the most successful marathoner on American soil. The 34-year-old Kenyan, who represents adidas, is the only man in history to have won all three American races of the Abbott World Marathon Majors and an Olympic Marathon medal.
He won the Boston Marathon in 2021, the Bank of America Chicago Marathon in 2022, and the TCS New York City Marathon in 2025. Uniquely, he’s the only man to win the Boston Marathon in the month of October (the 2021 race was delayed from April until the fall due to the COVID-19 pandemic).
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The Boston Marathon, which will be held for the 130th time on Monday, April 20, has always had a special meaning for Kenyan athletes, especially Kipruto. He’s run the race four times. He only finished tenth in his first appearance in 2019, then won in 2021 after reeling in a solo breakaway by American C.J. Albertson who, at 25-K, enjoyed a one-minute and 41-second margin. Kipruto caught him in the 21st mile.
“I didn’t know that somebody was ahead,” Kipruto later admitted to reporters, looking a little embarrassed.
He came back in 2022 and took third behind his training partner Evans Chebet and another Kenyan, Lawrence Cherono, who was later banned for seven years for doping. In 2023 he took third for the second time, beaten again by Chebet and also Tanzania’s Gabriel Geay. He hasn’t raced Boston since then, and is excited to come back this year. He ran the Tokyo Marathon, held in early March, the last two years, instead.
“Boston holds a special place in my heart,” Kipruto said through a statement provided by the Boston Athletic Association (B.A.A.), the race founders and organizers. “I won my first Major there in 2021 and have finished third twice. I look forward to starting my 2026 season and racing a fast group of men in April.”
Kipruto’s last comment was not hyperbole. Even in the era of super shoes and inflated times, this year’s Boston men’s field is exceptionally fast. Twenty-five men in the elite field have run sub-2:07 during their careers (ten of them have run sub-2:05), and Kipruto’s fastest challenger, compatriot John Korir, is the race’s defending champion who, after dropping out of the Chicago Marathon last October, rallied to win the Valencia Marathon last month in a personal best 2:02:24. That was the #3 performance for 2025.
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“I think I have closed out my year with a personal best and I say, ‘thank you to God’ and all those people who have been behind it,” Korir told Pulse Sports in Kenya last month.
Among Kipruto’s other key challengers are reigning world marathon champion Alphonce Simbu of Tanzania, who finished second to Korir at Boston last year then won the world title in Tokyo last September in a sprint finish by just 3/100ths of a second. He was also the bronze medalist at the 2017 World Championships in London.
“I made history today: the first Tanzanian gold medal at a world championships,” Simbu said after his win in Tokyo. “I remember in 2017, at the World Championships in London, I won bronze. Then I ran many times but never got any medals, so finally it is here.”
In all, the B.A.A. managed to lure back eight of the race’s top-10 men from last year. Among them are Kenya’s CyBrian Kotut (3rd in 2025), Utah’s Conner Mantz (4th) and Clayton Young (7th), Canada’s Rory Linkletter (6th), and Lesotho’s Tebello Ramakongoana (8th). Mantz broke Khalid Khannouchi’s 23-year-old national marathon record at Chicago last October and will be running Boston for the third time.
“Finishing fourth a year ago was very close to my goal of placing in the top three,” Mantz said last month through a statement. “I’m eager to return to Boston and race against the best of the best again. Boston’s full of history and I’m working to give it my all every step towards Boylston Street.”
Other top men entered include Dutchman Abdi Nageeye, the 2021 Olympic Marathon silver medalist and the 2024 New York City Marathon champion; Ethiopian Lemi Berhanu, the 2016 Boston Marathon champion; Oregon’s Galen Rupp, a two-time Olympic Medalist who will turn 40 in May; and Colorado’s Zouhair Talbi, who just won the Chevron Houston Marathon in a personal best and course record 2:05:45. Talbi, who ran for Morocco in the 2024 Olympics will be eligible to represent the United States at the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.
In the elite wheelchair division, all eyes will be on Switzerland’s Marcel Hug, the world’s most dominant wheelchair racer. Hug, who turned 40 last week, won Boston for the eighth time last April. His margin of victory over second place Daniel Romanchuk was more than five minutes. Hug’s victory last year came on the 50th anniversary of American Bob Hall becoming the race’s first wheelchair finisher. Hall attended the 2025 race as a special guest.
“One of my first racing chairs was a Hall chair,” said Hug. “He opened the door for us to be able to participate here.”
The race winners in the professional men’s and women’s divisions will earn $150,000 in prize money, the highest first place prize among the seven Abbott World Marathon Majors events. The professional wheelchair champions will earn $50,000, and setting a course record in either division is worth another $50,000.
