Zouhair Talbi and Brigid Kosgei Win the 2026 Great North Run

Talbi beat the defending champion Alex Mutiso by 14 seconds in Newcastle on Sunday, and Kosgei won the women's race by more than two minutes, four weeks out from the Chicago Marathon.

Published: Sep 13, 2026 4:21 pm

Jessy Carveth

Jessy Carveth

Jessy is our Senior News Editor, pro cyclist and former track and field athlete with a Bachelors degree in Kinesiology.

Here's My Full Profile

learn about our editorial process

Senior News Editor

Zouhair Talbi won the Great North Run in 59:47 on Sunday, 14 seconds clear of the defending champion Alex Mutiso, and Brigid Kosgei took the women’s race in 1:06:15.

Talbi did his damage late. He and Mutiso were together deep into South Shields, by the Independent‘s account of the race, before Talbi went clear over the closing stretch. Mutiso came home in 1:00:01, a second on the wrong side of the hour, which is a curious way for him to lose one of these. He has run 57:59 for a half-marathon, in Valencia in 2020, and he turned 30 on Thursday. Most of his recent work has been at the longer distance, and he took bronze in Tokyo in March.

Sunday capped a good nine months for Talbi, who was born in Morocco and became an American citizen last year. He won Houston in January in 2:05:45 for a course record, ran 59:41 at the NYC Half in March behind Adriaan Wildschutt, which is still the quickest he has covered the distance, and then went 2:03:45 at Boston in April, the fastest an American man has ever run that course. He is entered for the New York City Marathon on Nov. 1, where Conner Mantz and the defending champion Benson Kipruto are waiting.

Zouhair Talbi and Brigid Kosgei Win the 2026 Great North Run 1

Kosgei Wins Her Second Great North Run

Kosgei was on her own almost from the gun and never looked like being caught, which is roughly how her last visit to Tyneside went. Her 1:06:15 was a long way outside the 1:04:28 she ran here in 2019, still the fastest anyone has covered the course, but it was worth 2:04 over Sheila Chepkirui, who finished in 1:08:19 defending the title she won last year. Melknat Wudu of Ethiopia took third in 1:09:37.

She had a reason to keep something back. Kosgei opened the year by winning Tokyo in 2:14:29, a course record and her quickest marathon since the world record she set in 2019, and she runs Chicago on Oct. 11. “I have come here to test my body and see how it will be for the Chicago Marathon,” she told K24 Digital afterwards. “I want to test my speed and how my body responds.” Chepkirui, who won New York in 2024, goes back there on Nov. 1.

Eilish McColgan got only a few miles. This was her first race back since a toe stress fracture picked up at the London Marathon in April, which cost her 10 weeks and then the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, and she pulled out early with a foot problem. “The Great North Run has been a really important goal for me to focus on while building back from my toe injury,” she had said when organizers announced the elite field.

Japan had the busiest morning of anyone. Four of the first 10 men were Japanese, led by Yohei Ikeda in third in 1:00:40, with Kosei Matsunami fifth, Shouya Yonei sixth and Yuki Takei 10th, from the eight Japanese men in the invited field. Honami Maeda, whose 2:18:59 in Osaka in 2024 was a Japanese record, was fourth in the women’s race in 1:09:43.

The best of the home runners came in behind them. Amy-Eloise Neale was the leading British woman in fifth, 1:10:27, four weeks out from her own marathon debut in Chicago, and Marc Scott led the British men home in eighth, 1:02:10, five years after he won this race. All four British men picked for the half-marathon at the world championships in Copenhagen stayed away from Newcastle.

Brendan Foster’s race is 45 years old and has never been bigger: 63,000 entered this one, against the 12,000 who ran the first in 1981. Copenhagen is next on the road calendar, with the women’s half-marathon going off at 9:10 a.m. on Sunday and the men’s at 9:45 a.m.