In a late but headline-making addition to the 2025 New York City Marathon field, Kenenisa Bekele will line up against longtime rival Eliud Kipchoge on November 2, reviving one of distance running’s most iconic matchups, perhaps for the final time.
The announcement, made on October 24, comes after the withdrawal of 2022 NYC champion Evans Chebet.
At 43, Bekele is no longer a guaranteed headliner in elite marathon fields, but his presence alongside Kipchoge adds a historical weight to this year’s race. Between them, the two legends have shaped two decades of global distance running, from Olympic tracks to record-setting roads.
They’ve raced five times over the marathon distance, with Kipchoge taking four wins to Bekele’s one, the latter coming, somewhat anticlimactically, at last year’s Paris Olympics, where Kipchoge dropped out with a hip injury and Bekele jogged through the pain to finish 39th in 2:12:24.
That unlikely Olympic result may have robbed fans of a proper showdown, but New York offers a second chance.
The rivalry began long before either man turned to the marathon.
Their first encounter came on the track at the 2003 Bislett Games in Oslo, where Bekele, then 21 and already a rising star, edged out 18-year-old Kipchoge by less than half a second in a searing 5,000m.
Kipchoge would get his revenge just months later at the World Championships in Paris, outsprinting both Bekele and Hicham El Guerrouj to win gold.
In those early years, Bekele had the edge.
He dominated their head-to-heads on the track, beating Kipchoge in 11 of 13 matchups over 5,000m and 10,000m.
But once both athletes turned to the roads, the momentum shifted. Kipchoge became the face of modern marathoning, the man who broke 2:00 in a controlled exhibition, won four London and two Olympic titles, and twice held the official world record.
Bekele’s career on the roads, by contrast, has been more mercurial, brilliant but inconsistent.
He ran 2:01:41 in Berlin in 2019, missing Kipchoge’s then-world record by just two seconds, and as recently as 2024, clocked 2:04:15 in London to set a new men’s masters world record. But he has also struggled with injuries and DNFs, including his last appearance in Valencia, where he dropped out before halfway.
This will be Bekele’s first New York City Marathon since 2021, when he finished sixth in 2:06:47.
For Kipchoge, this is his debut, and a symbolic one. After wins in Berlin, London, Tokyo, and Chicago, New York marks the final stop in his quest to complete all six Abbott World Marathon Majors. He’s 40 now, and well past his unbeatable stretch of form, but the drive for legacy remains.
There’s no guarantee that either athlete will contend for the win. That likely belongs to younger names like Tamirat Tola or Shura Kitata, who’ve been more consistent in recent years. But in many ways, that’s beside the point. This is not a race about medals or records, it’s about memory.
For two athletes whose paths have defined an era of distance running, November 2 may mark the end of a story that began on the infield of a Norwegian stadium more than 20 years ago. No matter where they finish, it’s the start line that matters.
