F45-49 at TCS London Marathon 2026: Sarah Holt Runs Down the Field

• Sarah Holt wins F45-49 in 2:37:46 (6:01/mi), finishing 12th among all women — a dominant margin of nearly six minutes over runner-up Helen Gaunt.
• Helen Gaunt's 15th-fastest women's split on the 5K–10K segment hinted at an aggressive early move, but she couldn't sustain it, sliding from 12th among women at the first checkpoint all the way to 37th by 35K before recovering slightly to finish 35th — and 2nd in F45-49 in 2:43:44.
• Caoimhe Nic Fhogartaigh delivered the most dramatic charge of the top five, moving from 238th among women at 5K all the way to 109th by the finish, clocking 5th in 2:53:48 on the strength of the 85th-fastest women's split on the 30K–35K segment.
• Places 7–10 were decided by a combined 84 seconds, with Victoria Hill (7th, 2:55:48), Hazel Wyness (8th, 2:55:51), Sandra Perchaud (9th, 2:57:05), and Helen Davies (10th, 2:57:09) all separated by razor-thin margins across the closing miles.

Sarah Holt was the story of the F45-49 race from start to finish — and the numbers back it up completely. Running 6:01/mi through a breezy, overcast London morning, she was already 12th among all women at the first checkpoint and never dropped out of the top 28. Her most decisive move came late: she posted the 10th-fastest women's split on the 35K–40K segment, climbing from 13th to 12th among women in the closing stages to seal the win in 2:37:46. In a field of 2,995, that margin over second place — five minutes and 58 seconds — was not a close race at the front.

Helen Gaunt ran the opposite arc. She went out hard — her 5K–10K split was the 15th-fastest among all women — and sat 12th among women through the opening stretch. But the pace caught up: she drifted to 37th by 35K, eventually settling for 2nd in F45-49 in 2:43:44. Still a superb result, but the early aggression cost her in the back half. Elizabeth Owen ran a steadier race to claim 3rd in 2:52:40, while Claire Grima (4th, 2:53:26) faded gradually from 72nd among women at 5K to 106th by the finish — a contrast to Nic Fhogartaigh just behind her, who built all race long to take 5th in 2:53:48.

The battle for places 6 through 10 was some of the tightest racing of the day in F45-49. Taeya Konishi Schogel (6th, 2:55:25), Victoria Hill (7th, 2:55:48), and Hazel Wyness (8th, 2:55:51) were separated by just 26 seconds, with Wyness holding off Sandra Perchaud (9th, 2:57:05) and Helen Davies (10th, 2:57:09) by a comfortable but hard-earned margin. Further back, four athletes — Claire Dermody, Emily Antcliffe, Abigail Watson, and Vicky Wright — all finished between 3:01:35 and 3:01:57, a 22-second window that tells you exactly how competitive the middle of this 2,995-strong field truly was.