Catch up on the essentials
- Two-time Olympic champion Eliud Kipchoge won the Melbourne Marathon on Sunday with a race-record 2 hours, 9 minutes and 10 seconds, two seconds inside the previous course best.
- Australia's Thomas Do Canto was runner-up in 2:10:35, with fellow Australian Reece Edwards third in 2:15:57, according to the ABC report.
- Kipchoge, on his Melbourne Marathon debut and only his second visit to Australia, said after the race it was a "beautiful time" to enter the stadium and celebrate that anniversary.
Selected from this article · 2026-10-11
Read on for the full pictureMelbourne victory and finishing time
Two-time Olympic champion Eliud Kipchoge won the Melbourne Marathon on Sunday with a race-record 2 hours, 9 minutes and 10 seconds, two seconds inside the previous course best. The Kenya great broke clear inside the final 10 kilometers and finished inside the Melbourne Cricket Ground, where he waved to fans on a half-lap inside the stadium and said afterward that he would have been quicker without that pause. It was his first marathon victory since Berlin in 2023.
Rivals and other finishers
Australia's Thomas Do Canto was runner-up in 2:10:35, with fellow Australian Reece Edwards third in 2:15:57, according to the ABC report. New Zealand's Camille French won the women's race in 2:28:25, with Australia's Sinead Diver 23 seconds back and Ireland's Nichola Sheridan a further 24 seconds behind in third.
Course and 1956 Olympic link
The 42.2 km route took runners down St Kilda Road, past Flinders Street Station, around Albert Park Lake — partly on the Australian Formula One track at Albert Park — and finished inside the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the venue that also hosted the start and finish of the 1956 Olympic marathon 70 years earlier. Kipchoge, on his Melbourne Marathon debut and only his second visit to Australia, said after the race it was a "beautiful time" to enter the stadium and celebrate that anniversary.
World tour and remaining stops
The Melbourne race was the third stop on Kipchoge's announced 2025 plan to run a marathon on all seven continents over two years, including Antarctica, after earlier legs in South Africa and Brazil. Described in the reporting as his "World Tour" to raise funds for causes he believes in, the Melbourne leg doubled as both a competitive win and a fundraising milestone.
Unresolved next step
The ABC and Japan Times reports do not name the next scheduled continent on Kipchoge's tour or the date of the subsequent marathon, leaving the calendar for the remaining stops — including the planned Antarctic leg — unconfirmed in the available reporting.
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