The largest marathon in the U.S. has a lot to offer. With 55,000+ runners taking to the streets of the city’s five boroughs, there’s plenty to watch—but for hardcore running fans, all the best action is going down at the front of the pack.

Election Day in New York may be Tuesday, but the real contest is taking place two days earlier. Two new champions will be crowned in the men’s and women’s elite fields. Defending champs Abdi Nageeye and Sheila Chepkirui are running for re-election, but interestingly neither is the biggest name on the marquee. Nageeye will try to hold off 2021 champ Albert Korir, three-time World Marathon Major champ Benson Kipruto, and 2024 London champ Alexander Mutiso, among others. And the two biggest names are unlikely to contend for the win, but will surely contend for the most cheers: all-time legends Kenenisa Bekele and Eliud Kipchoge. Unfortunately, we won’t get to see World champ Alphonce Simbu or 2022 NYC champ Evans Chebet, who both withdrew from the race.

Americans in the field include Biya Simbassa—the fifth fastest U.S. marathoner in history—and the highly anticipated debuts of tracksters Joe Klecker, Hillary Bor, and Charlie Hicks. But wait – Hicks is British, is he not? Well the Stanford alum, who’s lived in the U.S. since he was 12, became eligible to represent Team USA in June. And he’s opting for baptism by fire against Klecker, one of the top marathon prospects in the current track ranks, and Bor, a two-time Olympian in the steeplechase.

But enough about the men. When the runners hit the Verrazzano Bridge on Sunday, it’ll be the women’s race that likely proves more intriguing, with three of the best marathoners in the game go head-to-head-to-head. Hellen Obiri (2023 NYC champ, two-time Boston champ, Olympic bronze), Sifan Hassan (Olympic champ, three-time major champ, #3 all time), and Sharon Lokedi (2022 NYC champ, 2025 Boston champ) will throw their respective hats in the ring to deny Chepkirui a second title. In addition to unofficial mayor of New York status (sorry to those other guys), a win here will likely secure the position of world #1.

Before we even get to NYC, what have these three done so far in 2025? Hassan has been the busiest of the bunch, as usual: New York will be her third marathon this year after finishing third in London and winning the Sydney Marathon in its first year as a major. Lokedi outsprinted Obiri for the win in Boston this spring, with both women shattering the previous course record. Right now, the top marathoner in the world is likely Tigst Assefa, who beat Hassan in London and picked up a World silver, but the field assembled for New York is stronger than the one assembled for the World Championship itself.

It’s understandable to assume that Hassan wouldn’t be favored in her third marathon of the year just two months after Sydney, but this is Sifan Hassan we’re talking about. She’s actually raced a lot less than normal in 2025, as her only two races on the docket so far have been her two marathons. That’s two races less than she ran at the Paris Olympics in the span of two weeks! Count her ability to bounce back out at your own peril.

Hassan hasn’t been completely unbeatable in marathons, but in six attempts at the distance she’s won four. Just as significantly, anyone who beats Hassan in a marathon will join a small club that currently only has five members total. If Hassan wins, she has to be considered the top dog over Assefa, and if anyone else wins, beating Hassan will be a key line in their resume.

Obiri has been one of the most consistently great marathoners in the circuit over the same period as Hassan. In seven races, she’s won Boston twice and New York once, and since finishing sixth in her debut in New York in 2022, only four women have beaten her: Hassan, Assefa, Lokedi, and Chepkirui. To beat an all-time great, you have to be an all-time great. She’s also finished on every marathon podium since her debut, so her consistency is up there with the best.

Lokedi doesn’t have the track resume of either Hassan or Obiri, but since taking to the marathon she’s been stellar. If she goes two-for-two with Boston and New York wins, she’ll become the only woman in the world this year to win two majors, and that alone makes a compelling case for world #1. She’s got two wins, a second, and a third in six career marathons, and her one blemish was a ninth-place run in NYC last year (after a short post-Olympics turnaround). Few marathoners are as consistent as the women at the top of the ticket for New York this year, so it’s extremely likely that two or three of them will run really, really well and still lose.

The American field is also likely to result in the best finisher being the best U.S. runner this year, in part because it’s been a pretty quiet year so far for the women. NYC features the return of two of the most decorated American marathoners of the 2020s: U.S. record holder Emily Sisson and Olympic bronze medalist Molly Seidel. Sisson has had a fairly low-key year to date, with no marathons on her card and only a 1:09:19 season’s best in the half. But she also has the highest ceiling of anyone in the field, as her PB is two full minutes clear of the next fastest U.S. entrant, 42-year-old Sara Hall.

Seidel is a big unknown, as the now-Texas-based runner has only raced once this year, a low-key half, and hasn’t run a marathon since 2023. She’s talked about dabbling with trail racing, but remains committed to keeping 26.2 on her schedule through 2028, so who knows what kind of form she’s bringing to NYC. The last time she hit the Big Apple was back in 2021, but it was a real good one: she ran 2:24:42 for fourth place, a time that’s still the fastest any American has run on the hilly course.

The field also features Worlds fourth-placer Susanna Sullivan and Olympic Marathon Trials winner Fiona O’Keeffe, among others. If Sullivan takes top American honors here she’ll have the best two-race resume of anyone this year, and if O’Keeffe has the talent to potentially knock it out of the park in her first marathon since dropping out of the Olympics just steps into the race.

New York’s position as the final World Marathon Major on the docket each year often means it’s an opportunity for athletes to end their season with an exclamation mark. Sure, someone will surely run stupid-fast at Valencia in December, but in order to win this election race, you’ve gotta bring your best stuff against a stupid-stacked field. So there’s more than a $100,000 first prize at stake: there’s another one-year term as the top marathoner in your sphere. And every vote step counts.

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