Kenenisa Bekele Will Run the 2026 Berlin Marathon at The Age Of 44

Kenenisa Bekele will run the Berlin Marathon on Sept. 27, race organizers said Thursday, putting the 44-year-old on a start line for the first time since he dropped out of the New York City Marathon last November.

He comes into a men’s race that has been short of a headline since Aug. 27, when Sabastian Sawe withdrew. Sawe’s agent, Eric Lilot, told LetsRun.com that a scan had found a stress fracture in the Kenyan’s right shin, and that he is not expected back until next spring. Sawe ran 1:59:30 in London in April, the first sub-two-hour performance in a record-eligible marathon. That leaves Bekele the fastest man on the start list, on a personal best from seven years ago.

That best, 2:01:41, came on this course in 2019, and it left him two seconds adrift of the world record Eliud Kipchoge held at the time. Three years before that he won in Berlin in 2:03:03, six seconds off Dennis Kimetto’s mark. Organizers raised the near-miss again this week. Bekele still owned both track records then, so two seconds was all that stood between him and world records at 5,000m, 10,000m and the marathon at once, which no runner has managed. Sawe’s mark is now 2:11 faster than anything Bekele has run.

Bekele’s case as the best track runner in history rests on a decade of work. He won Olympic gold over 10,000m in Athens in 2004 and both the 5,000m and the 10,000m in Beijing in 2008, took four straight world titles at 10,000m between 2003 and 2009, added the 5,000m in Berlin in 2009, and won 11 individual world cross-country titles. His world records at 5,000m (12:37.35) and 10,000m (26:17.53) both lasted until Joshua Cheptegei took them in 2020, the first standing 16 years and the second 15. He came to the marathon late, debuting in Paris in April 2014 at 31 and winning in 2:05:04.

The record within reach in Berlin is one he already owns. World Masters Athletics groups its records in five-year bands, so 44 keeps him in the M40 category until he turns 45 next June. The fastest marathon anyone over 40 has run is his 2:04:15, second in London in April 2024, though the mark World Masters Athletics lists as the M40 record is his other one, 2:04:19 from Valencia in December 2023. Either way, a good day on Sept. 27 improves his own record rather than setting a new one.

Recent form gives little to go on. He pulled out of the 2025 London Marathon five days before the race, saying that “a series of small niggles” had left him short of his best. In New York in November he reached halfway in 1:05:21 with the group behind the leaders. CITIUS Mag, following the timing data, found no split for him past 17 miles, and he is down as a did-not-finish. The last one he completed was Paris in August 2024, 39th in 2:12:24.

His shoes changed somewhere in there too. He left Nike in October 2023, ending a relationship that had run more than 20 years, and signed with the Chinese brand Anta. Anta said the deal also covered his training complex in Ethiopia, the Kenenisa Resort and Sport Center.

Kipchoge, his rival for most of both careers, was in that same New York field and came home 17th in 2:14:36. Two hours after finishing he called it “not a retirement, but a transition to running for a purpose,” and he has spent this year on a seven-continent marathon plan: 16th at Cape Town in May in 2:13:29, then 12th at Porto Alegre in July, with Melbourne on Oct. 11 to come. Bekele has laid out nothing comparable. At 44 he is simply still entering majors, against men 20 years younger.

Organizers also added Alisa Vainio to the women’s field. The Finn won the European title in Birmingham in August in a championship record of 2:22:26, and her 2:20:39 from Seville in February is the quickest marathon any Nordic runner has run, past Ingrid Kristiansen’s 2:21:06 world record from 1985. That puts her 10th on the women’s list, behind Tigst Assefa, whose 2:11:53 here in 2023 was a world record at the time and who is back to try for it again.