Masters Men at London 2026: McLeod Runs Down the Field for the Title

• Ryan McLeod won the Masters Men race in 2:19:41 (5:20/mi), climbing from 35th among men at the first checkpoint all the way to 13th by the finish.
• John Gilbert led early — as high as 5th among men through 10K — but faded to 18th in the men's field by the line, finishing 2nd in Masters Men in 2:20:21.
• Oskar Jonsson (3rd, 2:22:16) and Markus Ploner (4th, 2:22:25) were separated by just nine seconds after 26.2 miles, with Jonsson posting the 15th-fastest split in the men's field on the 40K-to-finish stretch to edge clear.
• Will Green rounded out the top five in 2:23:07, while the top 20 were covered by just over nine minutes — a deep, competitive Masters Men field of 16,876 finishers.

Ryan McLeod ran the kind of race that looks effortless on paper and brutal in practice. Starting conservatively — 35th among men at 5K — he picked off rivals with methodical precision, reaching 17th by the halfway mark and ultimately crossing in 2:19:41 to claim the Masters Men title. His 15th-fastest split in the men's field on the 15K–20K stretch signalled the moment his race truly ignited, and he never looked back.

The early story belonged to John Gilbert, who surged to 5th among men through the opening 10K — his 6th-fastest split in the men's field on that segment was the kind of pace that turns heads on the Embankment. But the back half of a London Marathon has a way of settling accounts, and Gilbert's gradual fade to 18th in the men's field by the finish tells that tale plainly. He still held on for 2nd in Masters Men in 2:20:21, a fine run in its own right.

Behind them, Jonsson and Ploner staged a compelling duel. Ploner was the stronger mover through the middle miles — climbing from 95th to 33rd among men — but Jonsson's late charge on the run-in, posting one of the sharper closing splits in the men's field, gave him 3rd in 2:22:16 to Ploner's 4th in 2:22:25. Will Green (5th, 2:23:07) and Daniel Gaffney (6th, 2:23:48) kept the pressure on throughout, and the fact that 14th through 20th were all clocked between 2:27:45 and 2:28:56 speaks to just how tightly bunched this Masters Men field ran across a cool, breezy London morning.