The ULTIMATE 2024 NYC Marathon Women’s Preview: Sharon Lokedi Tries to Deny Hellen Obiri Repeat Victory

Each of the last three New York City Marathons have featured incredible finishes on the women’s side. In 2021, Peres Jepchirchir completed a unique Olympic/NYC double by holding off Viola Cheptoo Lagat and Ababel Yeshaneh over the final 800 meters. In 2022, Sharon Lokedi stunned the running world by breaking free of Lonah Salpeter in the final mile and winning New York in her marathon debut. Last year’s finish was the best yet, with Hellen Obiri outlasting Letesenbet Gidey to claim the title in the final 400m thanks to a 4:52 final mile.

This trend is hardly unique to New York. The last two London Marathon and last three Boston Marathons have all been decided in the final mile, while this year’s Olympics in Paris featured one of the most dramatic finishes in the history of marathoning. At the same time, we’ve seen women win by astonishing margins in Berlin and Chicago as they chase — and achieve — world records. It’s almost two different sports at this point.

Women’s division winning margins, World Marathon Majors 2022-24

Tight packs late in the race have become a familiar sight in recent NYC Marathons (Kevin Morris photo)

What explains the disparity? In Berlin and Chicago, the clock has become all-important, with the races built around one or two women chasing a fast time. Crucially, both of those also races employ male pacers (London has only used female pacers in recent years, while Boston, New York, and the Olympics/Worlds do not use pacers at all). Meanwhile time means very little in Boston, New York, and the global championships, where it’s all about the W. The course plays a role as well — runners are less likely to push the pace early in Boston and New York knowing the hills and bridges that await them in the second half of those races.

The beauty of sports is that you can never predict what is going to happen next. Is this the year someone breaks away early and Margaret Okayo‘s 2:22:31 course record from 2003 finally goes down (the weather forecast looks terrific for running fast)? Or will the winner be determined by another showdown in Central Park? Tune into ESPN2 on Sunday morning (pro races begin at 8:35 a.m. ET) to find out.

Here’s LetsRun.com’s preview of the 2024 NYC Marathon women’s elite race.

*Full elite field

The Clear Favorite

Obiri winning NYC last year (Kevin Morris photo)

Hellen Obiri – Kenya – 34 years old – 2:21:38 pb (Boston, 2023)

Obiri has run five marathons in her career. She made a few rookie mistakes in her debut in New York in 2022, where she finished 6th, but since then her record has been impeccable. She went on to win her next three marathons (2023 Boston, 2023 NYC, 2024 Boston) before taking Olympic bronze in Paris this summer. In that race, she was only beaten by the arguable women’s distance GOAT (Sifan Hassan) and 2:11 marathoner Tigst Assefa.

The Olympic hangover is always a risk, and this will be Obiri’s third marathon this year — something she has never attempted before. But none of that is enough to dislodge her as the clear favorite in Sunday’s race.

The Woman Poised to Step Up If Obiri Falters

Sharon Lokedi – Kenya – 30 years old – 2:23:14 pb (Olympics, 2024)

Last year in New York, Lokedi hung with Obiri and Gidey until the final mile before getting dropped and settling for 3rd. In Boston in April, Lokedi ripped a 15:06 5k from 35-40k, including a 4:41 (downhill) 24th mile, but that was not good enough to drop Obiri, who went on to win again. And at the Olympics in August, Lokedi finished 4th, just four seconds out of the bronze medal won by…you guessed it, Hellen Obiri. Wonder if Lokedi is getting sick of her?

Lokedi is clearly a threat to win on Sunday. The bad news for her is that Obiri is going to be favored if the race comes down to a kick — which it usually has in recent years. The good news for Lokedi is that she has been closing the gap to Obiri each time — she was 10 seconds back at ’23 NYC, eight seconds back at ’24 Boston, and just four at the Olympics. It’s not like Lokedi is a bad closer. She just happens to be up against a great closer in Obiri, a woman who was a two-time world champion and two-time Olympic silver medalist in the 5,000 meters on the track.

All of this is to say that Lokedi should be in the mix until the very end. And she is the woman to beat if Obiri is off her game at all — which is what happened in 2022 when Lokedi won NYC.

Other names to know

I’d estimate there’s a roughly 75% chance that either Obiri or Lokedi wins on Sunday, but given how the pace has lagged in the last few NYC Marathons, we could see a few more women in the mix over the final miles. Here are the other international women to watch on Sunday, broken down by categories.

Impressive pbs looking for a breakthrough

Sheila Chepkirui (2:17:29 pb), Senbere Teferi (2:19:21 pb)

Chepkirui and Teferi are the #1 and #4 seeds in NYC based on pb and have also run fast for the half marathon (64:36 for Chepkirui, 64:40 for Teferi). But neither has come all that close to winning a marathon. In nine starts, they’ve combined for just one top-two finish — Chepkirui’s 2:17:49 in Berlin last year, where she was almost six minutes behind winner Tigst Assefa’s world record. This spring, they finished 5th in Boston (Teferi) and 6th in London (Chepkirui), and they come into NYC having finished 2nd (Teferi, 67:41) and 4th (Chepkirui, 67:44) at the Great North Run in September. They are both talented marathoners but a win in NYC would require a step up in performance level.

Do these legends still have it?

Tirunesh Dibaba (2:17:56 pb), Vivian Cheruiyot (2:18:31 pb), Edna Kiplagat (2:19:50 pb)

Dibaba, 39, Cheruiyot, 41, and Kiplagat, 44, are three of the best runners of their generation. Dibaba and Cheruiyot have both won Olympic gold on the track in addition to a World Marathon Major, while Kiplagat has WMM victories in New York, London, and Boston in addition to two world titles in the Marathon. New York loves a good story, and seeing their names on a start list again conjures fond memories. But it’s fair to wonder how much they have left, particularly in the cases of Dibaba and Cheruiyot. Let’s take them from youngest to oldest.

When New York announced its field in August, Dibaba’s was the most surprising name on the entry list. She has an impressive pre-super shoe pb of 2:17 from 2017, but she has not run a marathon since 2018 and did not race at all in 2020, 2021, or 2022, giving birth twice during that span. She has not run any fast times since returning in 2023, and her only result of 2024 was a 31:04 road 10k in Madrid in June. She has a case as the greatest female distance runner ever, but she has no recent results to suggest she is capable of contending in New York.

Cheruiyot also gave birth in October 2021 (her second child), and has slowly been working her way back. She began racing again in 2023 and has shown some progress this year, running 2:21 for 3rd at the Paris Marathon in April and 67:54 at the Great North Run in September (not far behind Teferi and Chepkirui). Her coach/agent Ricky Simms told LetsRun.com that Cheruiyot wasn’t super fit heading into that race but that she has trained much better since then, splitting similar times in a 9 x mile session a few weeks ago as she did before she won London in 2018.

“She still believes she can be competitive at the top level even though her event took a big step forward while she was on maternity leave,” Simms wrote in a text to LetsRun.com. We’ll see on Sunday whether she is right.

Though Kiplagat is the eldest of the trio by some margin — she turns 45 on November 15 — she has been the most successful by far recently, winning Boston at 41 in 2021 and finishing 3rd in Boston in April behind Obiri and Lokedi. Her ceiling may not be as high as it used to be, but no one should be surprised if she lands on the podium again in New York.

Best of the rest

• Dera Dida, Ethiopia (2:19:24 pb): Dida won Dubai last year and was 3rd there this year. She’s a long shot to win in New York (she was 10th in Boston this year) but one interesting note is that she is the wife of Tamirat Tola — the reigning NYC/Olympic champ who is also racing on Sunday.
• Eunice Chumba, Bahrain (2:20:02 pb): Chumba is the national record holder for Bahrain and has posted a couple of solid marathons this year — 3rd in Nagoya in 2:21:25 and 10th at the Olympics — but she’d need to go up a level to contend in NYC.

The Americans

There are a number of familiar names in this one — Des Linden, Aliphine Tuliamuk, Kellyn Taylor, Jenny Simpson — as well as one new one, Dakotah Popehn. That’s right: Dakotah Lindwurm, who got engaged minutes after finishing 12th in the Olympic marathon in August, got married last weekend and will be racing under her new name on Sunday.

Of that group, HOKA NAZ Elite teammates Tuliamuk and Taylor are both entering the race off of injury-shortened buildups. Tuliamuk is still dealing with the effects of the torn hamstring she suffered in 2023; her coach Jack Mullaney told LetsRun that while she is still not at 100%, she has found a good rhythm in the last eight weeks. Meanwhile Taylor underwent surgery to repair a torn meniscus in August and missed four weeks of running in the aftermath. Both women are true pros, and Taylor gutted out a 6th-place finish in the 10,000 at the Olympic Trials in June coming off a stress fracture this winter. But it’s hard to be optimistic given their abbreviated buildups.

Linden, 41, was 11th at the Olympic Marathon Trials but has not finished in the top 10 at a World Marathon Major since 2019. She will need to turn back the clock if she is to finish as top American on Sunday. Simpson, who is retiring after NYC, was only 18th in Boston in April.

That leaves Popehn and Jessica McClain. Popehn backed up her surprising Olympic Trials performance by finishing as the top American woman at the Olympics (12th) and comes into New York with nothing to lose — no matter how Sunday’s race goes, 2024 will go down as a MASSIVE success for her.

For McClain, 2024 has been a year of almosts. She was 4th at the Olympic Trials in both the marathon and the track, then flew to Paris at the eleventh hour as a potential injury replacement only for Fiona O’Keeffe to start the Olympic marathon and drop out in the first 5k. Still, McClain comes to New York in great form after a fall season in which she finished 2nd at the US 20k champs and 1st at the US 10k champs.

The pre-race press conference is Thursday in NYC and we will be there. So come back to LetsRun.com to get more of the inside scoop. Plus on Friday, we’ll be broadcasting a live NYC Marathon preview show where we will make or predictions (tentative time: 1 p.m. ET).

In the meantime, talk about the race on our world-famous messageboard/fan forum: Official 2024 New York City Marathon Discussion Thread.