2019 London Marathon fields are out and are ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!! Field even includes Americans Huddle, Sisson and Derrick.

(Wejo note: clearly Robert and I are twins as we independently were posting this. My post has been merged here).

The full London fields came out this hour.

https://twitter.com/LondonMarathon/status/1086278860960784388

The top names had already been announced but now we have some interesting US additions. Emily Sisson's marathon debut will be in London and she'll be racing her training partner and American half marathon record holder Molly Huddle.

How close to 2:20 do you think they can come? (or even get under it if you're really bold)

Chris Derrick is the only American male in the field. American is struggling to get anyone under 2:10 and London is a better race for him to do it than Boston. Do you think he will get under 2:10? On our podcast yesterday we said we thought the odds were against an American not named Leonard Korir or Galen Rupp breaking 2:10 this year but London is a fast course. The only problem for Derrick is he won't have a lot of guys to run with if he's trying to go sub 2:10. If you look at the field there are 10 guys who have run under 2:05:30 and then only 2 who have run between 2:05:30 and 2:10.

Allie Kieffer and former NCAA star Cam Levins are also in the field.

Here is the official press release on the women's field. What's funny is the field is so good the organizers don't even mention the fact that they have the reigning Tokyo champ in the field. They talk about having the champs of the last 4 marathon majors but they also have Tokyo from last year.

http://www.letsrun.com/news/2019/01/mary-keitany-and-vivian-cheruiyot-head-up-elite-womens-field-at-the-2019-virgin-money-london-marathon/

Ok, in the first post, I listed all of the runners by their PRS. I was quite proud of myself as I had to bring out my Princeton econ skill for the first time in 20 years and sort them in excel as the organizer's list of elites was in some sort of bizarre order.

Here is how the organizers listed the elites. I will send a free Letsrun tshirt or $5 - whichever you prefer - to the person who can find and then explain the logic of the following list. I can see no logical order to this list at all.

Men

Eliud KIPCHOGE KEN 02:01.39

Mosinet GEREMEW ETH 02:04.00

Mo FARAH GBR 02:05.11

Tola Shura KITATA ETH 02:04.59

Wilson KIPSANG KEN 02:03.13

Tamirat TOLA ETH 02:04.06

Cameron LEVINS CAN 02:09.25

Abraham KIPTUM KEN 02:04.16

Leule GEBRSELASSIE ETH 02:04.02

Mule WASIHUN ETH 02:04.37

Michel BUTTER NED 02:09.58

Ihor OLEFIRENKO UKR 02:12.04

Yassine RACHIK ITA 02:12.09

Daniel WANJIRU KEN 02:05.21

Henryk SZOST POL 02:07.39

Brett ROBINSON AUS DEBUT

Jack RAYNER AUS DEBUT

Chris DERRICK USA 02:12.50

Callum HAWKINS GBR 02:10.17

Dewi GRIFFITHS GBR 02:09.49

Jonathan MELLOR GBR 02:12.57

Andy VERNON GBR DEBUT

Tsegai TEWELDE GBR 02:12.23

Andy DAVIES GBR 02:15.11

Joshua GRIFFITHS GBR 02:14.49

Robbie SIMPSON GBR 02:14.04

Matt SHARP GBR 02:16.02

Jack MARTIN GBR DEBUT

Thomas DE BOCK BEL 02:15.19

Dennis LAERTE BEL 02:16.29

Nitender SINGH RAWAT IND DEBUT

Mick CLOHISEY IRL 02:14.55

Derlis AYALA PAR 02:13.41

Mikael EKVALL SWE DEBUT

Iraitz ARROSPIDE ESP 02:13.23

Yohei SUZUKI JPN 02:12.18

Bashir ABDI BEL 02:10.46

Women

Vivian CHERUIYOT KEN 02:18.00

Brigid KOSGEI KEN 02:18.35

Tadelech BEKELE ETH 02:21.40

Tirunesh DIBABA ETH 02:17.56

Gladys CHERONO KEN 02:18.11

Mary KEITANY KEN 02:17.01

Molly HUDDLE USA 02:26.44

Emily SISSON USA DEBUT

Roza DEREJE ETH 02:19.17

Lilia FISIKOVICI MDA 02:28.26

Sinead DIVER AUS 02:25.19

Birhane DIBABA ETH 02:19.51

Linet MASAI KEN 02:23.46

Haftamnesh TESFAY ETH 02:20.13

Martina STRAHL SUI 02:28.07

Allie KIEFFER USA 02:28.12

Lily PARTRIDGE GBR 02:29.24

Tracey BARLOW GBR 02:30.42

Sonia SAMUELS GBR 02:28.04

Charlotte PURDUE GBR 02:29.23

Laura GRAHAM GBR 02:37.05

Hayley CARRUTHERS GBR 02:36.48

Natasha COCKRAM GBR 02:35.47

Tish JONES GBR 02:33.56

Ruth VAN DER MEIJDEN NED 02:31.15

Maude MATHYS SUI 02:31.17

Carmen MARTINEZ PAR 02:35.17

Brittany CHARBONEAU USA 02:36.34

Emma MITCHELL IRL DEBUT

Awesome! Look forward to seeing what Molly and Allie can do on a fast course! Assuming they can drop good times it should be a nice confidence booster going in to Atlanta and Tokyo

Huddle 2:29. Kieffer 2:33. Sisson 2:34. Derrick 2:15.

Yikes you're a Negative Nancy. Those would all be dreadful and disappointing performances. At least one of those 4 will run well.

notrump wrote:

Huddle 2:29. Kieffer 2:33. Sisson 2:34. Derrick 2:15.

Have you ever heard of Jordan Hassay?

notrump wrote:

Huddle 2:29. Kieffer 2:33. Sisson 2:34. Derrick 2:15.

Women's winner - 2:17:57

Men's winner - 2:02:56

Huddle - 2:23

Sisson - 2:25

Derrick - 2:11:57

the obvious response wrote:

Awesome! Look forward to seeing what Molly and Allie can do on a fast course! Assuming they can drop good times it should be a nice confidence booster going in to Atlanta and Tokyo

Huddle talks about 2:23 in a RW article. Given that she has a 67 half, I don't see why she cn't take a crack at 2:20 flat.

ghggfdg wrote:

the obvious response wrote:

Awesome! Look forward to seeing what Molly and Allie can do on a fast course! Assuming they can drop good times it should be a nice confidence booster going in to Atlanta and Tokyo

Huddle talks about 2:23 in a RW article. Given that she has a 67 half, I don't see why she cn't take a crack at 2:20 flat.

As for Sisson, we will be better able to tell after Houston this Sunday.

Would Derrick and Huddle be getting appearance $?

chris derrick is the american distance running hero we need but don't deserve

ric flair woo wrote:

chris derrick is the american distance running hero we need but don't deserve

If Pre was alive, he would win the London marathon.

Yes. Travel and low-to-low-mid 5 figures ($10,000-$40,000). And there’s a chance that that’s what the list is sorted by—largest appearance fee to smallest appearance fee.

rojo wrote:

Here is how the organizers listed the elites. I will send a free Letsrun tshirt or $5 - whichever you prefer - to the person who can find and then explain the logic of the following list. I can see no logical order to this list at all.

They randomised the list, and then put Eliud at the top. This proves the organisers are Eliud fans.

Might be London Marathon's idiosyncratic version of seeding, like Wimbledon. The event organizers can ultimately order the elites however they want, but generally we see that those with the faster PBs are toward the front and those with slower PBs are toward the back of each list. My guess is that past performances, especially at London and majors in general, play a factor in the seeding, but these lists might be determined largely by what each athlete's expected finish time is. The London Marathon does the same for all the regular runners, but the elites or their representatives likely supplied an expected finish time when applying, which is why you see some of the debutantes, like Sisson, mixed in among the faster runners. If true, it looks like Levins, Derrick, Huddle, and Sisson believe they'll have relatively great races compared to past performances.

Not An Expert wrote:

Yes. Travel and low-to-low-mid 5 figures ($10,000-$40,000). And there’s a chance that that’s what the list is sorted by—largest appearance fee to smallest appearance fee.

I do not think it is sorted by appearance money - if true you would have 2:12 runners Ihor Olefrenko of the Ukraine and Yass-something Rachick of Italy getting more money than a 2:05 guy.

The women's field has to be the most stacked women's field of all time. Five sub-2:19 marathoners that all are in or near their prime. Holy crap. Plus some Americans going after a good time.

The men's field has great times on paper, but a lot of those are old PRs or Dubai PRs. I like the chances of Kipchoge, Kiptum, Kitata, and Farah.

Former Hillary supporter wrote:

ric flair woo wrote:

chris derrick is the american distance running hero we need but don't deserve

If Pre was alive, he would win the London marathon.

? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?