Olympic triathlon champ to make 42.2 debut at 2025 London Marathon

On Monday, the organizers of the TCS London Marathon announced there will be a new face headlining the 2025 race. Great Britain’s Alex Yee, the reigning Olympic triathlon champion from Paris 2024, will make his marathon debut on Sunday, April 27, in his hometown of London.

The 26-year-old, who has won four Olympic medals in triathlon, has a ton of experience in distance running, representing Great Britain in track and cross-country events internationally. He has a 5K personal best of 13 minutes and 26 seconds and has run under 28 minutes for 10,000 meters.

In triathlon, Yee is often regarded as the strongest runner in the sport. The reputation played in his favor earlier this summer in Paris when he caught New Zealand’s Hayden Wilde on the final lap of the Olympic triathlon to win gold. The strong field Yee will face at the 2025 TCS London Marathon will make it one of his biggest challenges to date. However, Yee will look to his home course advantage.

According to the press release, Yee raced the 2.6km Mini London Marathon five times during his junior career and grew up 15 minutes from the start line in Blackheath. “London Marathon day has been such a big part of my life growing up,” recalls Yee. “I remember racing the Mini London Marathon multiple times as a young athlete, and it was one of my biggest and most exciting races of the year. Taking part in a full marathon has always been an itch I’ve wanted to scratch, and there isn’t any other place than London where I would want to start that journey.”

For his London build-up, Yee plans to put his triathlon training on pause to focus solely on marathon training. “I will be focusing my training over the coming months on the marathon and am looking forward to seeing what I can do over the 26.2 miles,” he said.

Last year, Kenya’s Alexander Munyao won his first Abbott World Marathon Major in London, denying Ethiopian distance legend Kenenisa Bekele a hoped-for first London Marathon win with a time of 2:04:01. Bekele did, however, set a new masters marathon record with his time of 2:04:15. The top British finisher was Emile Cairess, who ran 2:06:46 finish third, making him the second-fastest British marathon runner of all time behind Mo Farah.

Yee is the first runner announced for the 2025 London Marathon elite field. The full elite field will be announced in the new year.

posted Tuesday December 17th
by Marley Dickinson