Just a week after Keira D’Amato announced she would not run the London Marathon, Emily Sisson has also dropped out of the race, which will take place on April 23.
In an Instagram post this morning, Sisson, 31, announced her decision to withdraw from the marathon this year. “I tweaked something in my hip during a workout a few weeks ago, and it just didn’t quite heal fast enough! I have taken a few days off since then and have been slowly increasing my runs—and things are feeling a lot better!” she wrote. “Feeling fortunate it isn’t something a lot worse; just bad timing.”
She plans to run some shorter races this year, then switch back to the marathon in late 2023.
Sisson will certainly be missed on the streets of London. In 2019, she set the tone for an incredible marathon career by crossing the finish line near Buckingham Palace in 2:23:08, earning herself sixth place and the second-fastest marathon debut by an American woman.
After the race lull of the pandemic, Sisson emerged stronger and faster than ever. Last year, she captured the American Marathon Record in Chicago in 2:18:29, shaving 43 seconds off the record D’Amato had set just nine months before. And in January, at the Houston Half Marathon, she bested her own American Half Marathon Record record by 19 seconds, running the race in 1:06:52.
Watching Sisson and D’Amato go head to head in London would undoubtedly have been one of the top moments in American distance running this year. But in their absence, the race will still feature a stellar women’s field. Marathon world record holder Brigid Kosgei is favored to win a tough race against 63:43 half-marathon runner Yalemzerf Yehualaw and 1500-meter world record holder Genzebe Dibaba.
Kells McPhillips is a health and wellness journalist living in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in Runner's World, The New York Times, Well+Good, Fortune, Shape, and others.
