Kenyan Rosemary Wanjiru announced that she will return to the 2024 Tokyo Marathon in March to defend her title.

Also racing will be the 2023 Chicago and London Marathon Champion Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands.

Wanjiru won the 2023 edition in the time of 2:16:28.

The 29-year-old Wanjiru has run only one other marathon and that was the 2022 Berlin event clocking a 2:18:00 finish time. She finished second in Berlin. Her marathon best is far and away her best event. However, she did run the Valencia 10K in the time of 29:50 in 2020.

Hassan is a two-time Olympic gold medallist and two-time world champion. She has won several other international national medals over distances from 1500, 5000m and 10,000m. Perhaps most notably, she won the 2023 Chicago Marathon in the time of 2:13:44.

Hassan also won the 2023 London Marathon in the time of 2:18:33 after having to stretch out her quads and walk for a portion of the race.

Some of the other elite women include Amane Beriso Shankule who has run as fast as 2:14:58 in Valencia in 2022. Lonah Chemtai Salpeter with her 2:17:45 performance from the 2020 Tokyo Marathon. The 35-year-old runs for Isreal. Tigist Abayechew (ETH, 2:18:03) and Sutume Asefa Kebede (ETH, 2:20:30) round out the top runners. There are several more seeded athletes listed on the Tokyo Marathon website.

The Tokyo Marathon takes place on Sunday, March 3. Tokyo is of the six Marathon Majors which also include Boston, New York, Chicago London, and Berlin.

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