German marathon record holder Amanal Petros is returning to home soil with the kind of momentum that makes race directors speak in complete sentences of relief. The 31-year-old, who missed the world title in Tokyo by roughly the width of a shoelace, will line up at the Mainova Frankfurt Marathon on October 25. The announcement came on Wednesday in Frankfurt, where organizers looked understandably pleased.
Not long before, Samuel Fitwi and Richard Ringer—Germany’s other two members of the national all-time top three—confirmed their own entries. For a country that has spent decades searching for depth in the marathon, this is something like a solar eclipse: rare, bright, and guaranteed to draw a crowd.
The Frankfurt Marathon, a World Athletics Elite Label Road Race, is experiencing the kind of demand that suggests German distance running is having a moment. Organizers plan to expand capacity to 20,000 runners, which is either ambitious or overdue, depending on your perspective.
The Three Musketeers, reloaded
Petros, Fitwi, and Ringer have only once before appeared together in a marathon: the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, where they ran as a trio and then promptly went home and got faster. Petros now owns the German record at 2:04:03, Fitwi clocked 2:04:45 in Hamburg this spring, and Ringer—ever the outlier—has a legal best of 2:05:46, plus a Boston 2:04:47 that lives in the grey zone of “fast but not official.”
Race Director Jo Schindler didn’t bother hiding his enthusiasm: “A historic moment,” he called it, and for once the phrase isn’t hyperbole. Petros alone has rewritten the German record book four times—2020, 2021, 2023, 2025—and is the only German athlete to have simultaneously held the national marks for 10K, half marathon, and marathon. He is, in short, the most prolific record-breaker the country has ever produced.
Frankfurt is the tune-up
Frankfurt will be Petros’s first German marathon since his silver-medal run in Tokyo. With the European Championships in Birmingham looming in August, he’s treating Frankfurt as the fast half of a two-part season: “The course in Birmingham will be difficult, so that won’t be a fast race,” he said. “Frankfurt fits very well into my schedule… it gives me the chance to run a very good time.”
He last visited the race three years ago as a spectator. Now he returns as the headliner.
A cooperative rivalry
Petros insists the German trio won’t be engaging in a domestic cage match, “Richard, Samuel and I will certainly support each other during the race. It is not primarily about beating each other—we get on far too well for that.” Instead, the goal is collective elevation: a fast pace, a meaningful result, and, if the weather cooperates, perhaps something historic.
A German record? Possible. A European record? Petros didn’t shy away: “If everything really comes together, I would like to go for the European record.”
That mark—2:03:36, held by Belgium’s Bashir Abdi—sits just 27 seconds ahead of Petros’s best. Close enough to tempt. Close enough to chase.
And with Germany’s three fastest marathoners ever lining up together, Frankfurt may finally get the showdown it didn’t know it was waiting for.
