Hello and welcome to Telegraph Sport’s stay protection of the 2022 London Marathon, held in October for the third time in its historical past. 

April 2023 will see the occasion return to its normal springtime scheduling, after transferring to the autumn final yr as a result of Covid lockdown restrictions. 

However this remaining October marathon, blessed – for now – by clear skies, ought to be a memorable one, with a stacked line-up of stars throughout the elite race classes. 

Each of final yr’s defending champions within the elite males’s and ladies’s races, Kenyan Joyciline Jepokosgei, and Ethiopian Sisay Lemma respectively, can be returning search a consecutive victory. Notably, Lemma received final yr’s race with following a bout of Covid; though he was capable of run the race having returned a unfavourable check that morning, he was denied the chance to take up his place on the rostrum. 

Within the elite ladies’s race, Jepokosgei, whose London Marathon final yr was her first, will look to see off final yr’s second and third place finishers, Degitu Azimeraw and Ashete Bekere. Lower than every week earlier than the beginning of the marathon, world document holder Brigid Kosgei withdrew from competitors, as a result of a proper hamstring damage.

While Mo Farah won’t be competing within the elite males’s race, Lemma should deal with marathon stars comparable to Kenenisa Bekele and Birhanu Legese. However world document holder Eliud Kipchoge, who final week beat his personal document to set a brand new world’s quickest time on the Berlin Marathon, will not be competing. 

Within the elite wheelchair races, each Swiss winners, Marcel Hug and Manuela Schar will return to defend their titles. 

Beginning off the practically 42,000 runners throughout all classes this morning can be three of England’s Lionesses: Jill Scott, Ellen White, and captain Leah Williamson, and in mild of Saturday’s rail strikes, occasion director Hugh Brasher has mentioned that late arrivals will be capable to begin in a later pen, in an effort to make sure as excessive participation as attainable.

We have got an thrilling morning forward, with staggered begins as follows:

• 8:50am elite wheelchair males’s and ladies’s race begin
• 9:00am elite ladies’s race begin
• 9.40am elite males’s race and mass begin