London Marathon live: Latest updates as Sir Mo Farah enters race for final time

Defending champion, Olympic champion. Megartu was third last year. And the great athlete Hassan.

Elsewhere, Kiptum starts to pick up the pace and opens a small gap – but then misses his drink. That could be significant. However, he does not change his approach, he quickly created a distance of about 20 meters between himself and the rest, just as he tried to win in Valencia. 1:30:00 now for men.

The marathon should always be ancient. When the event began at the first modern Olympic Games in 1896, it was intended as a way to appeal to ancient traditions; to the ancient Greek origins of the games and the probably mythical story of the runner Pheidippides, who ran from Marathon to Athens to report on the success of the battle there.

No one knows exactly what shoes – or none – Pheidippides wore. But the shoes of its contemporary peers are so advanced that they would have seemed completely alien to any ancient Greek or even the marathon runner a few decades ago.

They’re just a technology that’s fundamentally changing the sport of long-distance running, which has long been admired for being an ancient and simple art of putting on shoes and running as far and as fast as possible. Alongside super shoes have come digital twins and advanced wearables, technologies so advanced they are breaking records and changing the way athletes run.

More on the increasingly important role of tech in sport here:

Well then. Hassan is back in the lead group after catching up all the distance so five are looking at that late fight as we break the two hour mark.

Chepkirui is next in their sights, then the other three are all more or less level.

Will we see a debutant as the winner? A back-to-back winner? All options are still on the table here.

Kipruto, Kiptum and Legese lead the men. Kamworor is also present. They’re in the race there for an hour and ten minutes.

But for now our focus is on the women’s race, which has a great finish in sight.

Sam Harrison is 12th, the leading Brit, sure to be looking for a PB by the looks of it.

Yehualaw, Jepchirchir, Chepkirui and Megertu fight in the leading quartet. Korir and Hassan are still close behind.

Now the leading group is beginning to split! Four in front and the pace starts to pick up.

Yehualaw looks at her watch, Megertu throws away her bottle. This group seems to be responding to Hassan’s urging to bring her back in – they don’t want her to be close in the last mile or so, which has been her forte in distance racing so far, even if not marathons.

In the men’s race, Kelvin Kiuptum is currently just one second ahead of the chasing group.

Hassan has closed the gap to about 20 meters on the leaders in the women’s race – Jepchirchir leads, Chepkirui is second but certainly quite balanced. Real excitement builds at the end of this race and it could be a scintillating ending.

The leaders of the men’s race come across the bridge. Mo Farah is about to fall over when he grabs his drink right at the start. Emile Cairess is also just behind him.

Huge crowds across the bridge as always as we pass the one hour mark.

Hassan is bridging the gap to the top runners – we’re 1:31:30 in the women’s marathon and about 14km to go.

At the moment there is a group of six at the top, with Jepchirchir, Dibaba and Yehualaw all leading.

And in a surprising twist, it’s Madison de Rozario rounding the final corner in front of us, and she’s freaking out to claim her second London Marathon victory!

Schar in second, Debrunner in third and Scaroni in fourth, while the group that led consistently crossed the finish line in quick succession.

The women’s wheelchair race is nearing the final kilometers and Catherine Debrunner is in front, Madison de Rozario, Susannah Scaroni and Manuela Schar are all close – it’s still a four-way battle but it needs a big finish from one of the other Debrunner rework.