Really good men’s field, really weak women’s field. The rumor is they were left scrambling after Ruth C got popped. Probably didn’t help in getting Americans either.
She didn’t test positive for a PED. She should be allowed to compete - HCTZ has no performance benefits.
Well said, Rekrunner. Same goes for traces of nandrolone, so...
If the pack goes out at 2hr pace, I have no doubt Mantz will follow. The guy tried to run with Kipchogee the first time he ran Boston. He doesn't let the pack run away.
Now if it's just one guy running away Mantz will let him go. But he will stick with the group for at least the first half.
Really good men’s field, really weak women’s field. The rumor is they were left scrambling after Ruth C got popped. Probably didn’t help in getting Americans either.
She didn’t test positive for a PED. She should be allowed to compete - HCTZ has no performance benefits.
it's masking agent and is on the list. are you special needs?
Yes, Mantz will be off the 2hour flat pack in the first half mile, as well he should be if he wants to target 2:05 flat. He needs his own pace group and they should encourage some of the Japanese marathoners to come over and run. They have any number of 2:05 - 2:07 men who would likely love to escape the Tokyo summer and come run fast here.it could provide a really good group for Mantz to work with.
i love Chicago t he city but I don’t love Chicago the race really. I don’t think t hat it should be a major, now that they’ve added Sydney, they should have dropped Chicago to keep it at six.
the pace groups should be interesting. if i had to guess
I prefer avoiding the ambiguous term PED. WADA doesn't use it either.
Regardless of performance benefits, or lack thereof, HCTZ is banned by WADA.
Endogenous nandrolone however, is not banned by WADA.
Good point! Neither is endogenous HCTZ. And I bet the corrupt anti-doping agencies again only presumed that the lab worked properly. No proof!
Ruth is therefore being railroaded to a ban also.
WADA's TL24 doesn't seem to make any distinction or exception for "endogenous" HCTZ -- meaning it would also be banned by WADA.
Ruth Chepngetich hasn't been banned yet, but you may have a point speculating that she is being railroaded too -- let's see what facts come out and the terms of her ban.
This post was edited 4 minutes after it was posted.
I know this may be an unpopular take and that’s fine with me. I have never trained for nor raced a marathon, but I feel like rupp was a better marathoner coming off of having fast track fitness.
of course he is older, have had multiple injuries and surgeries the past 3-5 years, and the clock is ticking. I would have liked to see him that an approach that would have started on the track building that speed endurance back. Maybe target a sub 8 3k, then sub 13:10 5k and so forth. Many would argue this is unnecessary use of time and resources but I do think he would be a more resilient and durable athlete if he got some of that speed back.
it would be interesting to know what Mike smith has Galen doing training wise since they seemed to put in a long block of training(only saw one video of rupp months ago w/ Nico young). I would think Galen is the only male marathoner smith is Coaching but smith has a background in coaching marathoners way before his college coaching days
For those surprised by Clinger's entry, he has apparently been completing every workout with Young (or Mantz on some days) per Strava. Doubt he has the base to quite match Young over a full 26.2 (even though Young wont be there), but I don't think 2:09 is out of the question, which would be a very, very good debut.
Love to see Albertson doing crazy things and racing WC's on Sept 15th and Chicago on October 12th, not even surprising from him at this point
On the W side, some heavy hitters who might've entered Chicago are slotted for the Tokyo 25 marathon: Amane Beriso, Tigst Assefa, YY. Ethiopia selected Taye as a reserve for the 10000m, so there's a slim chance she races both distances in Sep/Oct.
The Clinger entry surprised me a bit. He has only raced once longer than 10k, beating Klecker & Talbi over 25k in May 2025. I thought he'd knock down a half this fall, target making the US World XC Champs squad and start his marathon career in 2026, but maybe Eyestone believes he's ready to roll now.
I think Clinger is not only going to beat the American debut marathon record, I think he is going to smash it.
I'm a bit confused to not see Creed Thompson on the list, given that I think he believes he is going to run Chicago.
Last I heard (not confident on this) was that Davin had one more season of NCAA eligibility left. Both Davin and Creed have been injured a ton, I've always been impressed with their ability to keep grinding even when sidelined with injury. I'm stoked to see where they go
They just should've added Valencia. Sydney was a stupid choice that makes the name of a world marathon major somewhat a joke. Sydney might have had good participation from the masses in the past, but in terms of elite fields, their fields were very weak in comparison to any well known non-major marathon in the running world like Rotterdam or Valencia.
Yeah, I said this multiple times. I don't get the Sydney addition when it clearly should have been Valencia. I stand by my comment that Chicago should not be one of the Marathon Majors these days.
i love Chicago t he city but I don’t love Chicago the race really. I don’t think t hat it should be a major, now that they’ve added Sydney, they should have dropped Chicago to keep it at six.
Total Racers: Chicago had 52k finishers last year, Sydney had 20k.
Population/Crowd: Chicago Metro area has 9ish million, Greater Sydney area has 5ish million.
History: Chicago began in 1977, Sydney began in 2000.
Times: Chicago holds both world records, Sydney has never had a man break 2:06 or a woman break 2:21.
What am I missing?
I agree with you here, Sydney should not be a major but I think that neither should Chicago. Yes, both are big cities but there are too many in the USA and NYC and Boston have much better history/stories with them. Chicago's course is meh, with crappy roads, poorly done media and a city that simply doesn't embrace the race the way you see in Berlin, NYC, Tokyo. It absolutely should have been Valencia as the 7th if they really, really needed to expand.
It seems like once you're in the majors, you get to stay in the majors and I think that there needs to be a reassessment every 5 years or so. Is the quality of your race still up to par? As has been noted before, there are only so many world class marathoners and with three majors in the fall in fairly close proximity, we see what happens: the women's field here is extremely thin, exacerbated by a late run Worlds. The men's field is OK, but compared to Berlin? Not even close.
And this begs the question: why the expansion of the Majors? The obvious answer is $$. TCS built what I think many of us thought would never happen: marathons all over the world as a major sporting event/marketing event that actually not only has media attention but the general public's attention. Now, the main public doesn't give a damn outside of Kipchoge who wins the thing, but they're desperate to run those races as a bucket list thus the insane amount of entries to all the Majors now. Marathon running, and running those races is now a big deal worldwide and not just with us diehards. That's amazing.
But from an elite perspective? Meh. Fields are thinner and there is less real head-to-head competition and getting ahold of the race to watch? How many other sports make you troll message boards to find a link with your VPN so that you log into the Polish feed to watch the US Open? Or the French Open? Its a little insane that the Majors don't have a media package agreement worldwide.
Chicago has announced the full field for the 2025 race on October 12 and it's a doozy.
We already knew about John Korir (who has told Kenyan press he is targeting the 2:00:35 world record) and Conner Mantz, who is targeting Khalid Khannouchi's 2:05:38 American record. Today, Chicago announced that Jacob Kiplimo will be running there after finishing 2nd in his debut in London. And Galen Rupp will run his first marathon since finishing 16th at the 2024 Olympic Trials.
CJ Albertson, Zouhair Talbi, Matthew Richtman, and Ryan Ford are all also running. And Casey Clinger is debuting.
The women's field is not quite as strong. Lindsay Flanagan, Natosha Rogers, Gabi Rooker, and Dakotah Popehn are the top American entrants.
Ethiopia's Ejgayehu Taye (14:12 5k pb) is debuting.
Really good men’s field, really weak women’s field. The rumor is they were left scrambling after Ruth C got popped. Probably didn’t help in getting Americans either.
Chicago should be stripped of its WMM status. Clown show organizers, clown show city.
Total Racers: Chicago had 52k finishers last year, Sydney had 20k.
Population/Crowd: Chicago Metro area has 9ish million, Greater Sydney area has 5ish million.
History: Chicago began in 1977, Sydney began in 2000.
Times: Chicago holds both world records, Sydney has never had a man break 2:06 or a woman break 2:21.
What am I missing?
I agree with you here, Sydney should not be a major but I think that neither should Chicago. Yes, both are big cities but there are too many in the USA and NYC and Boston have much better history/stories with them. Chicago's course is meh, with crappy roads, poorly done media and a city that simply doesn't embrace the race the way you see in Berlin, NYC, Tokyo. It absolutely should have been Valencia as the 7th if they really, really needed to expand.
It seems like once you're in the majors, you get to stay in the majors and I think that there needs to be a reassessment every 5 years or so. Is the quality of your race still up to par? As has been noted before, there are only so many world class marathoners and with three majors in the fall in fairly close proximity, we see what happens: the women's field here is extremely thin, exacerbated by a late run Worlds. The men's field is OK, but compared to Berlin? Not even close.
And this begs the question: why the expansion of the Majors? The obvious answer is $. TCS built what I think many of us thought would never happen: marathons all over the world as a major sporting event/marketing event that actually not only has media attention but the general public's attention. Now, the main public doesn't give a damn outside of Kipchoge who wins the thing, but they're desperate to run those races as a bucket list thus the insane amount of entries to all the Majors now. Marathon running, and running those races is now a big deal worldwide and not just with us diehards. That's amazing.
But from an elite perspective? Meh. Fields are thinner and there is less real head-to-head competition and getting ahold of the race to watch? How many other sports make you troll message boards to find a link with your VPN so that you log into the Polish feed to watch the US Open? Or the French Open? Its a little insane that the Majors don't have a media package agreement worldwide.
The 2025 Bank of America Chicago Marathon will feature some of the world's greatest marathoners, including three of the four past champions all vying for repeat titles.
