The London Marathon airs live on NBCSN and streams commercial free for NBC Sports Gold “Track and Field Pass” subscribers on Sunday at 3:30 a.m. ET.
NBCSN coverage also streams on NBCSports.com/live and the NBC Sports app for subscribers.
Sunday’s race start times (ET)
3:55 – Elite Wheelchair Races
4:00 – World Para Athletics Marathon World Cup ambulant races
4:15 – Elite Women’s Race
5:00 – Elite Men’s Race, Mass Race
London’s elite fields are typically stronger than at the Boston Marathon, and this year is no different.
The men’s race is headlined by Olympic champion Eliud Kipchoge, largely regarded as the world’s best marathoner. The Kenyan has won seven straight marathons dating to the start of 2014, plus a record-ineligible 2:00:25 last May in Nike’s attempt to break the two-hour barrier.
Kipchoge faces a field with Ethiopian Kenenisa Bekele, the second-fastest marathoner of all time who also owns eight combined Olympic and world titles in the 5000m and 10,000m. Plus the world record in both of those track events, making him very arguably the greatest runner of all time.
Great Britain’s Mo Farah, who swept the 5000m and 10,000m at the last two Olympics, races his second career marathon and his first since transitioning full-time to road running. Farah made his 26.2-mile debut in London in 2014, running 2:08:21 for eighth place. He will likely need to be four minutes faster to contend for the win.
The women’s field is led by Kenyan Mary Keitany, a three-time London winner who last year ran the fastest marathon ever by a female runner without male pacers.
Ethiopian Tirunesh Dibaba finished second to Keitany last year with the fifth-fastest time without male pacers. She followed that by winning the Chicago Marathon on Oct. 8 with the sixth-fastest time ever.
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