Sifan Hassan Withdraws from the NYC Marathon, and It’s Not the Achilles

File photo: Sifan Hassan on Day 2 of the 2022 World Athletics Championships, Eugene, Oregon. Photo: Erik van Leeuwen via Wikimedia Commons (GFDL)

The headline doing the rounds says Sifan Hassan has pulled out of the New York City Marathon with an Achilles injury. She has not. The Achilles ended her London campaign six months ago. What has closed out her 2026 season is something far more ordinary: an illness that arrived at exactly the wrong moment and took away the training time she needed to be ready to race the five boroughs.

On October 14, New York Road Runners confirmed the Dutch Olympic champion’s withdrawal from the November 1 start. American runner Fiona O’Keeffe was scratched in the same announcement. In her Instagram post that evening, Hassan kept it direct: “I was so excited to come back stronger, but a sickness slowed down my training and I’m not where I wanted to be. Sometimes, things just don’t go as planned.”

That distinction between illness and injury matters more than it might seem.

Why Sifan Hassan Withdrew from the 2026 NYC Marathon

Hassan’s year began to unravel in February when a treadmill training session left her with an Achilles tendon injury. She spent weeks away from full training loads, and by late March it was clear she could not prepare at the standard London demands. Announcing that withdrawal, she said: “To compete at that level, you need to be in perfect condition. After the incident, I hoped the injury would settle, but as training progressed it became clear that I wasn’t able to prepare at the level I expect from myself.”

She set her sights on New York and spent the following months rebuilding. By August she was speaking to media about lessons taken from her difficult 2025 NYC debut, where she had raced just two months after winning the Sydney Marathon and clearly paid for the short turnaround. She had a specific plan and a specific point to prove. Then illness arrived and the plan fell apart.

She has not specified what illness disrupted her preparation. She has made clear only that it cost her too much training time to arrive at the start line ready to race at her level.

Hassan’s 2026: A Season That Never Happened

Her last marathon finish remains sixth place at the 2025 NYC Marathon in 2:24:43, a race she ran just two months after winning Sydney. She acknowledged afterwards the turnaround had been too short. She had been building specifically to come back to New York and correct that. Instead, she will not race at all in 2026. With no further scheduled races publicly known after this withdrawal, her blank season is almost certainly complete.

Fiona O’Keeffe Is Also Out of New York

The same NYRR announcement on October 14 confirmed a second high-profile scratch. American marathoner Fiona O’Keeffe, who won the 2024 US Olympic Trials, will miss New York. In her statement, O’Keeffe explained that an MRI at the end of September showed an old partial hamstring tear from her Boston buildup had become a fully retracted tendon tear on the left side. She underwent proximal hamstring repair surgery at the Steadman Clinic in Vail. “It’s going to be a long road back,” she wrote, “but I’m looking forward to the small milestones along the way.” It is her second consecutive missed marathon major due to injury.

Who Is Still Running the 2026 NYC Marathon Women’s Race

Hassan held the fastest personal best in the women’s field at 2:13:44. With her gone, defending champion Hellen Obiri anchors a field that remains genuinely competitive. Obiri, who broke her own NYC course record winning last year and has since run 2:15:53 at London, arrives in strong recent form. NYRR confirmed at the field announcement in August that five other women in the open division carried sub-2:20 personal bests, and those athletes are still racing on November 1.

Kelati’s debut deserves its own attention. The American half marathon record holder has been one of the most anticipated first-time marathoners in the sport for two years. New York is not the debut course most coaches would choose on paper. It is, however, the one she and her team picked, which says something about how ready they believe she is.

When Will Sifan Hassan Race Again?

She has not said. At 33, with a Paris Olympic gold and a career that has redefined what a versatile distance runner can be, she has given no indication of stepping back from the sport. The illness framing here is, in one respect, the more encouraging reason for a withdrawal: there is no structural damage requiring a lengthy recovery window. The problem was time, not the body. Whether that allows her to build cleanly into a spring major or whether 2027 starts slowly remains to be seen.

Canadian Running Magazine, which has tracked her season closely, notes she is unlikely to race again in 2026 given the timing of this withdrawal. For now, the New York City Marathon goes on without its most decorated entrant and without any clear answer on when Hassan will next cross a finish line.

Heading to New York yourself or planning ahead for 2027? Our complete TCS NYC Marathon guide covers entry routes, the 2026 Bronx course change, race-day logistics and cost breakdowns for international runners.