When Canada’s second-fastest marathoner, Rory Linkletter, declined selection for the 2025 World Athletics Championships, it was a sign he had bigger plans brewing. Those plans will come to a head on Oct. 12 at the Bank of America Chicago Marathon, as he targets Cam Levins’s Canadian marathon record of 2:05:36.
The 29-year-old is coming off a strong spring marathon season with a runner-up finish at the 2025 Ottawa International Marathon and sixth at the Boston Marathon (only five weeks apart). Linkletter says his decision to race Chicago offers the perfect opportunity to test himself on a flat, lightning-fast course. His personal best of 2:07:02, set at Boston, already puts him second on the Canadian all-time list, but he knows he has more in the tank.
The Chicago Marathon has a history of producing some of the world’s fastest times. The late Kelvin Kiptum famously set the men’s world record of 2:00:35 there in 2023, and while this year’s race comes just three weeks after the World Championships in Japan, the race has still attracted a stacked field.
Leading the charge will be defending champion John Korir, who became the eighth-fastest marathoner in history last year with his 2:02:44 win. “I am confident that I will be able to defend my title,” said Korir in a press release. “My training is going well, and I’m focused on another personal best.”
The men’s field will feature six athletes who have broken 2:04, including Kenya’s Timothy Kiplagat (2:02:55), Amos Kipruto (2:03:13), and CyBrian Kotut (2:03:22), as well as Belgium’s two-time Olympic marathon medalist Bashir Abdi (2:03:36).
American half-marathon record holder Conner Mantz, a former teammate of Linkletter’s at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, will also be chasing a record mark, hoping to lower Khalid Khannouchi’s 23-year-old U.S. marathon record of 2:05:38.
Another name to watch will be Uganda’s Jacob Kiplimo (2:03:37), the half-marathon world record holder, who will be making his second career marathon start after finishing runner-up in London this spring. Given his half-marathon best of 56:42, Kiplimo has been widely regarded by journalists as the man who could challenge the elusive two-hour marathon barrier.
For the full list of elites for the 2025 Chicago Marathon, see here.
