4 min readOn Monday, April 17, 2023, the World Marathon Majors will make its first stop stateside at the Boston Marathon. The 127th iteration of the race will bring Olympic champions and Paralympians together for a highly anticipated showdown from Hopkinton to Boylston Street.
In the elite race, all eyes will be on Eliud Kipchoge, who is gunning for the men’s course record in his quest to win all six World Marathon Majors. According to World Athletics, the Boston Marathon will also be the world record holder’s first time racing in the U.S. since he won the 2014 Chicago Marathon. The women’s field features nine athletes who have run under 2:20, including rising star Amane Beriso, who ran the third-fastest marathon of all time last year, and reigning world champion Gotytom Gebreslase. With many high caliber athletes scheduled to appear on both sides, this year’s race is slated to be the “fastest and most decorated Boston Marathon” in race history, organizers say.
If you can’t watch from the sidelines in Boston, don’t worry. We’ve got you covered with plenty of viewing options. Here’s how you can tune in on Marathon Monday.
Race Details
Where: The world’s oldest annual marathon is a point-to-point course that begins in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, and ends in downtown Boston on Boylston Street.
When: The first division, the men’s wheelchair field starts at 9:02 a.m. ET and is followed by the women’s wheelchair division at 9:05 a.m. ET. The professional men start at 9:37 a.m. ET, and the professional women start at 9:47 a.m. ET.
How to watch: The 2023 Boston Marathon will be broadcast locally on WCVB Channel 5. Live national coverage will be featured on ESPN.
How to Watch the 2023 Boston Marathon
National coverage will be provided by ESPN. The broadcast is scheduled to begin at 8:30 a.m. ET and will continue until 1:00 p.m. ET.
If you live in the Boston area, you can watch live coverage on WCVB Channel 5 from 4:00 a.m. ET through 8 p.m. ET. The race will also be live streamed on Very Local Boston.
Storylines to Follow at the 2023 Boston Marathon
Kipchoge aims to break the course record
After claiming course records at the Tokyo, Berlin, and London marathons, Kipchoge has his sights set on another historic time in Boston, a notoriously difficult route with rolling hills. The time to beat is 2:03:02, set by Kenyan Geoffrey Mutai in 2011, and Kipchoge seems well prepared to surpass it.
In an interview with The Daily Nation, Kipchoge said he created a training run near his home in Kaptagat, Kenya, that simulates the Boston course. The two-time Olympic champion noted that training at high altitude (Kaptagat is 8,200 feet above sea level) also benefits him. “It is good for breathing and it can help enable me to breathe well and run fast and that is why I don’t even want to participate in the sixth World Marathon Majors, I want to participate and win all the six,” he told the Kenyan news outlet.
After shattering his own world record at the 2022 Berlin Marathon, an astonishing run that saw the world champion average 4:37-mile pace on his way to a 2:01:09 victory, Kipchoge appears ready to meet his goal.
A handful of previous Boston winners will tap into their experience to challenge Kipchoge on Monday. Evans Chebet of Kenya looks to defend his title after winning Boston and New York City last year. 2021 champion Benson Kipruto plus two-time Boston winner Lelisa Desisa are also aiming for the podium.
The American contingent includes Scott Fauble, CJ Albertson, and Conner Mantz, among other standouts. Last year, Fauble finished seventh as the top American in a 2:08:52 personal best. Albertson, the 50K world record holder, is returning to Boston after running a 2:10:23 personal best in last year’s race. Six months after making an impressive 2:08:16 marathon debut in Chicago, Mantz will be running his first Boston Marathon.
A world champion and rising star headline the women’s race
The women’s competition is also slated to be one of the fastest in history. Beriso holds the top time among the field after running 2:14:58 to win the 2022 Valencia Marathon in December. Only world record-holder Brigid Kosgei and Ruth Chepngetich have run faster than the Ethiopian marathoner. She’ll be challenged by Gebreslase, who won gold in the marathon at the 2022 World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon, last summer. She followed the winning performance with a third-place finish at the 2022 New York City Marathon last fall.
While New York City Marathon winner Sharon Lokedi has scratched Boston, a late entry is Kenya’s Hellen Obiri, who was sixth at New York in November in her marathon debut. Israel’s Lonah Salpeter is another athlete to watch. The European champion earned bronze in the marathon at last year’s World Athletics Championships, before finishing second in the New York City Marathon.
Past Boston winners Edna Kiplagat of Kenya and Atsede Bayisa of Ethiopia plus podium finishers Ababel Yeshaneh of Ethiopia and Mary Ngugi of Kenya are also gunning for top finishes.
On the women’s side, the American contingent includes top talent. Des Linden, Sara Hall, Aliphine Tuliamuk, Emma Bates, and Nell Rojas are among a strong group. Fresh off a fifth-place finish at the NYC Half Marathon, Linden is one of the past champions to headline the field. Hall and Bates are competing after breakthrough performances at the World Athletics Championships, in which they finished fifth and seventh, respectively. Rojas is returning to Boston after finishing as the top American two years in a row. Tuliamuk is also on the rise after placing seventh at the 2022 New York City Marathon, her first completed marathon since winning the 2020 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials.
Taylor Dutch is a writer and editor living in Austin, Texas, and a former NCAA track athlete who specializes in fitness, wellness, and endurance sports coverage. Her work has appeared in Runner’s World, SELF, Bicycling, Outside, and Podium Runner.
