Sifan Hassan and Fiona O’Keeffe Withdraw From the New York City Marathon

Sifan Hassan and Fiona O’Keeffe have both pulled out of the New York City Marathon on Nov. 1, taking the reigning Olympic champion and last year’s top American out of the women’s race. NBC Sports reported both withdrawals on Wednesday, and each runner explained why on Instagram. Both last raced in New York a year ago, and both missed their spring marathons too.

Hassan said an illness had cut into her preparation. “I was so excited to come back stronger, but a sickness slowed down my training and I’m not where I wanted to be,” she wrote. “Sometimes, things just don’t go as planned.”

The 2024 Olympic champion has not raced since finishing sixth in New York last November in 2:24:43, her first attempt at the course. That came only nine weeks after she won in Sydney in a course record of 2:18:22, and she had already been third in London that April, so 2025 brought her three majors in a little over six months. This March she withdrew from London with an Achilles injury she picked up in a treadmill incident.

Her personal best of 2:13:44, run in Chicago in 2023, was the fastest on the start list New York Road Runners released in August. That honor now passes to defending champion Hellen Obiri, who ran 2:15:53 for second in London in April. Obiri won in New York last year in 2:19:51, a course record, and Sheila Chepkirui, the 2024 champion and third a year ago, is back as well.

O’Keeffe, 28, had surgery last week. She had withdrawn from Boston the day before the race in April with a hamstring problem, and the Boston Athletic Association said little else at the time. “An MRI at the end of September showed that the old partial tear I got leading into Boston had turned into a fully retracted tendon tear on the left side, so surgery was the next logical step,” she wrote on Instagram. The operation, a proximal hamstring repair, was done at the Steadman Clinic in Vail, Colo. “It’s going to be a long road back, but I’m looking forward to the small milestones along the way,” she added.

Her marathon career has been short and frequently interrupted since she won the 2024 Olympic Trials in Orlando in 2:22:10 on her debut. She started the Paris Olympic marathon hurt and dropped out before 5K with a hip problem. Of the two marathons she has started since Orlando, she has finished one, and it went well: fourth in New York in 2:22:49, a time no American woman had bettered there.

Her debut mark lasted until just this past Sunday, when Emma Grace Hurley ran 2:20:47 in Chicago in her first marathon, 1:23 quicker.

The leading Americans left in the New York field are Jess McClain, whose 2:20:49 for fifth at Boston in April was an American course record there, Annie Frisbie, fifth in New York last year, and Weini Kelati, the American half-marathon record holder, who will be running her first marathon.

The next Olympic Marathon Trials, where O’Keeffe won on her debut two years ago, will be held in St. Louis on March 25, 2028.