Abdi Nageeye of the Netherlands and Sheila Chepkirui of Kenya won the 2024 New York City Marathon, each prevailing in the final stages of the race to clinch their first world major titles.

After a brutal 26.2-mile slog through New York’s five boroughs, from Staten Island to Central Park, in the heart of Manhattan, Nageeye, 35, reached the finish in 2:07:39, just six seconds ahead of Evans Chebet, the 2022 men’s champion.

Chepkirui, 33, finished in 2:24:35, with the defending women’s champion Hellen Obiri still visible over her shoulder as she crossed the line. Vivian Cheruiyot finished third, capping an all-Kenyan podium.

“The last turn was really tough,” Chepkirui said after the race. “I was still with Hellen, and I told myself, ‘I have to push up to the finish line’.”

Just 12 weeks after the Olympic marathons, the elite field was packed with athletes staging their post-Paris returns. “It’s like running the Olympics and then running another Olympic race,” Ethiopia’s Tamirat Tola, the Paris 2024 champion, who came to New York to defend his 2023 title in the city, told the Guardian earlier this week. Tola, 33, finished fourth on Sunday, hot on the tail of Albert Korir, the Kenyan who won New York in 2021.

For Nageeye, this weekend presented a chance to recover and retry, after a hip injury forced him to pull out just a few kilometers before the finish in Paris. This time – at the world’s largest marathon – he prevailed.

“I was out for revenge,” Nageeye said after the race. The Olympic withdrawal had been “was one of my biggest disappointments ever”, he added. “Every day” during training he thought about Paris, “but every day I was doing my training [at] like 110%, and it went so smooth that I had a lot of confidence today.”

New York is a notoriously unpredictable race for those at the front of the pack. “It’s a mind race,” said Obiri, as “you never know” when it truly begins. “You need to be ready,” she said. “If she moves at 27k, you are ready; if [she moves at] 40k, you are ready.”

Obiri, a bronze medalist in Paris, was ready in the final stages of the race. But Chepkirui was, too. After a hard kick, Chepkirui finished just 15 seconds ahead of Obiri.

Obiri and Tola had raised the prospect of a quicker race in New York; Tola described the course record he set last year as “breakable” on Thursday. “I think it’s possible to run faster on this course,” he said, “whether now, or in the future.”

Sunday was not the day. Both Tola’s 2:04:58 men’s course record, and Margaret Okayo’s 2:22:31 women’s course record, set in 2003, still stand.

Hundreds of thousands of people lined the streets of Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan and the Bronx to cheer as around 50,000 runners navigated the city on Sunday, tackling what is widely considered the toughest world major marathon.

Three American men and women each made top 10 finishes.

Training partners Conner Mantz and Clayton Young, who also made the top 10 in Paris, finished sixth and seventh in the men’s field, respectively; CJ Albertson, the top American finisher in Chicago, just three weeks ago, and Boston, in the spring, finished 10th.

Sarah Vaughn, forced by illness to drop out of Chicago last month, rebounded to finish sixth in the women’s field, as the top American. Jessica McClain and Kellyn Taylor were close behind, in eighth and 10th, respectively.

Two Americans also finished first in the wheelchair races for the first time, with Daniel Romanchuk holding off Britain’s David Weir in the men’s field; and Susannah Scaroni winning the women’s with a 10-minute lead. Marcel Hug, who had won 16 straight men’s wheelchair marathons, saw his streak end.

Bridges serve as the tentpoles of this marathon. Athletes begin on the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, crossing into Brooklyn; arrive in Queens via the Pulaski, at halfway; and trek over the Queensborough, as they hit Manhattan at mile 16 and the going really gets tough. Two more follow, bookending a single mile through the Bronx.

New York’s tough climbs invited comparison with this summer’s Olympic course. But there is “a big difference” between the two courses, Mantz noted: while the hills were steep in Paris, with plenty of flat sections along the way, New York is more rolling. The hills keep coming right until the end.

“I’m a good hill runner,” Mantz said before the race, noting New York’s two significant climbs in the second half. “If I execute correctly up to that point, then I think it will play to my strengths.”

Young had always been “intimidated” by New York. “I’m a Chicago guy,” having finished seventh in the windy city last year, with a personal best. “Let’s keep it flat, let’s keep it fast.”

But this year, and the Olympics, changed his thinking. Young finished ninth in Paris, just 44 seconds short of his personal best, despite the elevation. “I walked away with a lot of confidence,” Young told the Guardian this week.

“I’m a resilient runner. The worse, the better,” he said. “I used to kinda be afraid of the hills, but now I’m kinda thinking, like, make it hot, make it humid, make it miserable, make it rainy, make it cold, make it hilly, make it whatever you want – because I know mentally that I can handle it better than just about anybody.”

The New York City Marathon, organized by New York Road Runners, has come a long way since its debut in 1970. That year, 127 athletes lined up on the starting line and just 55 finished.

With Chicago, Berlin, Boston, London and Tokyo, New York is part of the six world major marathons. During Sunday’s race, however, organizers confirmed a seventh: Sydney will join next year.

Des Linden is a two-time Olympian. In 2018, she became the first American woman to win the Boston marathon in 33 years. In 2021, she set a world record in the 50km. She has run New York four times before.

This weekend, she was back at it. Linden, 41, does not have anything left to prove. But the thrill of competition – and the challenge of New York – drew her to another starting line. She was rewarded with 11th place, less than five minutes off the front.

“You just never know how the race is going to play out,” Linden told the Guardian in September. “Anything can happen.”