The fastest British marathon runner currently competing on the roads, Emile Cairess has today (Monday 24 February) announced his withdrawal from the 2025 London Marathon. Having been struggling with an ankle tendon issue during his training, he has pulled out of the race to focus on his recovery.
This is a hard hurdle for Cairess, who has achieved extraordinary things as a professional runner in recent years. At the 2023 London Marathon, which doubled as his debut over 26.2 miles, he placed an impressive six overall in a time of 2:08:07. Fast-forward one year to the 2024 London Marathon and Cairess was back in action and even better than before. Here, he crossed the finish line third in 2:06:46 – an Olympic-qualifying time that established him as the second-fastest British marathon runner of all time, behind only Mo Farah.
A few months later, in August 2024, Cairess was toeing the men’s marathon start line at his first-ever Olympics in Paris. Despite the heat, the hills and the undoubted heap of pressure, he finished a phenomenal fourth – narrowly missing out on a medal.
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In addition to his outstanding Olympic debut and strong results in London, Cairess – who is still aged only 27 – also holds the current European 10-mile record (45:57), having broken Richard Nerurkar’s 30-year-old mark in March 2023. Then, in February 2024, he rose to third on the UK all-time rankings for the half marathon when he ran 60:01 for the distance in Napoli, Italy.
As famous (at least in our eyes) for wearing a Casio watch as he is for exceptional running performances, Cairess will be missed by his home crowd at this year’s London Marathon. He, too, regrets his withdrawal, but is already looking ahead to more success post-injury.
‘I was really looking forward to racing the world’s best marathon runners at this year’s London Marathon and to build on the progress that I have made over the marathon distance,’ said Cairess. ‘It is an absolutely stacked elite men’s field at this year’s event, which makes it a really hard one to miss.
‘But, unfortunately, a setback in my build-up has persisted, which has significantly impacted the consistency of training that is required to be at my best. My focus now is on recovering properly, getting back to full training and returning to racing as soon as possible.’
Among the elite men still holding the fort for the Brits at the 2025 London Marathon are Phil Sesemann and Mahamed Mahamed, who – alongside Cairess – represented Team GB in the men’s marathon at the Paris Olympics last year. They’ll be joined by decorated swim-bike-run specialist Alex Yee, the reigning Olympic champion in the men’s individual triathlon who will be racing 26.2 miles for the first time in London this April.
