Andreas Almgren and Conner Mantz Have Both Entered the Copenhagen Half-Marathon

Andreas Almgren holds the European half-marathon record and Conner Mantz the American one, and between the two of them they have not raced a half-marathon all year. But both are entered in the men’s race at the World Athletics Road Running Championships in Copenhagen on Sept. 20, according to the final entry lists published Saturday.

Six weeks later they do it again, but over twice the distance. New York Road Runners have both men in the professional field for the Nov. 1 marathon, which Mantz goes into holding the American record at 2:04:43. Almgren has never run one in his life.

Their two half-marathon bests sit only 36 seconds apart. Almgren’s 58:41 came in Valencia on Oct. 26, 2025, where he finished fourth behind Yomif Kejelcha’s 58:02 and became the first European ever to break 59 minutes for the distance. Mantz set the American record of 59:17 in Houston in January 2025 and has since run 59:15 in New York, though that course is not eligible for records, so the 59:17 is the one that stands.

Almgren, 31, has spent 2026 doing almost everything except racing a half-marathon. In January he took the European 10K record down to 26:45 in Valencia, his fourth European record inside a year, and he holds three of them now, at 5,000m, 10K and the half. In August he won the European 10,000m title in Birmingham in a championship record 27:23.44, and he won it by 19.23 seconds, the widest winning margin the event has seen at a European Championships since 1990, LetsRun reported. Last September he took bronze over 10,000m at the World Championships in Tokyo.

Mantz, 29, has raced exactly once since last October. Within a month of the 2:04:43 at Chicago that finally shifted Khalid Khannouchi’s 23-year-old American record, he was hurt. “I had some hip pain, some back pain, and it ended up being a sacral stress fracture,” he told COROS in a July 30 interview. “I took longer than I’ve ever taken off.” Ten months went by, Boston in April went without him, and he did not reappear until the Falmouth Road Race on Aug. 16, where he ran fourth over seven miles in 31:19, two seconds behind Zouhair Talbi, who is also going to New York.

For all that, neither record buys much of a position in Copenhagen. The field runs to 142 men and 18 of them have been under the hour, which leaves Almgren third on the list and Mantz eighth. Nicholas Kipkorir of Kenya is clear of the lot on 58:08, with Gideon Kipkertich Rono on 58:38 and Ethiopia’s Tadese Worku on 58:47, and the men wedged in between the two record holders are hardly makeweights either: Yemaneberhan Crippa on 59:01, Daniel Simiu Ebenyo on 59:04, Alex Nzioka Matata on 59:11. Joshua Cheptegei is in on 59:21, 18 months after he announced he was leaving the track for the marathon.

Ebenyo has stood on this podium already, taking silver in Riga in 2023 in 59:14, four seconds behind Sabastian Sawe in a Kenyan sweep of the medals. That race drew 97 men to the start. This one has 142.

Mantz heads a U.S. team of Hillary Bor, Wesley Kiptoo and Ahmed Muhumed, two of whom he has already beaten this year: Kiptoo and Bor came fifth and sixth at Falmouth, 41 and 42 seconds behind him.

The race goes at 9:45 a.m. on Sept. 20 and closes the championships. Whatever it takes out of them, both men are on the New York start list six weeks after that.