Eliud Kipchoge announces “World Tour”: seven marathons on seven continents in 2 years

NEW YORK — On Sunday afternoon, two hours after finishing 17th in the 2025 New York City Marathon, Eliud Kipchoge announced his new goal: to run seven marathons on seven continents over the next two years. Dubbed the “Eliud Kipchoge World Tour,” Kipchoge plans to travel the globe spreading the “gospel of running” while raising funds for the Eliud Kipchoge Foundation, which supports educational and environmental causes.

Kipchoge characterized his move as a “transition” rather than a “retirement,” saying that at this point in his career, his goals in the sport have shifted.

“For the last 22 years, my life has been pushing the limits,” Kipchoge said. “My life has been concentrating on the winning. My life has been concentrated purely on breaking records. My life has been concentrated purely on setting world bests in any course. But now I say it’s not a retirement, but a transition to running for a purpose. And this purpose is the purpose to serve humanity.”

Here we come, Antarctica

Eliud Kipchoge at the finish in NYC (Kevin Morris photo)

Kipchoge plans to compete in existing marathons (yes, there is an Antarctica Marathon — the winning time last year was 3:38) and intends to race in the professional fields. But the Kipchoge who has lined up over the last two years is a shadow of the man who dominated the marathon like no one before from 2014–22. He officially turns 41 years old on Wednesday, and his time (2:14:36) and place (17th) in New York were both the worst of his 13-year career.

There is no shame in that. Kipchoge won two Olympic titles and set two world records, lowering the mark from 2:02:57 all the way down to 2:01:09. At his peak, he was so far superior to his peers that he had to invent new challenges for himself, choosing to race the clock in two manufactured attempts to break two hours for the marathon distance — succeeding in the latter in Vienna in 2019.

World champion on the track

They made a big deal of giving Kipchoge his World Marathon Majors 6-star finisher medal after the race, but we’re not sure why as he’s done 7 WMM

And we have not even mentioned his track career, which included a World Championship gold in one of the most loaded 5,000-meter finals in history and two Olympic medals. He is, by some distance, the greatest marathoner ever — one of the greatest athletes in track & field history, in any event. But Father Time is inevitable. And over the last two years, he has come for Kipchoge.

If the “Eliud Kipchoge World Tour” sounds more fitting for a rock star than a marathoner, that is because Kipchoge is the closest thing to a rock star that the marathon has. He is the most famous distance runner on the planet — the rare marathoner to go mainstream. And, like a rock star, his fans may not mind that the version they see is not the peak version they fell in love with. Sometimes, just getting to see them in person is enough.

Kipchoge’s manager, Valentijn Trouw, said that he expects to finalize Kipchoge’s schedule before December 1, and it will consist of three marathons in one year and four in the other, over the course of 2026 and 2027. He hinted that Cape Town or Shanghai — two races in the process of becoming World Marathon Majors — could be options, but said the aim is for Kipchoge to travel and interact with fans in areas where he has not competed before.

“He has done so many times London, so many times Berlin, for very obvious reasons,” Trouw said. “This opens the window to go to South America — he has only run Rio Olympics. In Asia, he has not been [racing] there as much as in Europe. This opens the window to go to different continents and to meet his fans all over the world.

“…It’s a transition to open the window to be closer to the fans. He is inspiring a lot of people, but he would like to be closer to them.”

Kipchoge enjoyed a longer run at the top than any men’s marathoner in the modern era, including a ridiculous stretch of 10 consecutive marathon victories (nine of them majors) from 2014–19. But that run of success is over. And whether Kipchoge wants to call it a transition or a retirement, he is entering a new phase of his career.

Over the last two decades, Kipchoge inspired millions by setting records and winning races. Now the aim is to inspire millions more — in a different way.