The vastly experienced Birhanu Legese leads a three-pronged NN Running Team challenge at the 2025 Shanghai Marathon (30 November) – a World Athletics Platinum Label Road Race and candidate race for the Abbott World Marathon Majors.  

Legese is a high pedigree athlete, who will be seeking to climax his season with a strong showing in the vast Chinese metropolis. 

The Ethiopian claimed back-to-back Tokyo Marathons in 2019 and 2020 and is the owner of an electric PB of 2:02:48 - when second at the 2019 Berlin Marathon – a mark which still ranks Legese tenth on the all-time lists. 

In more recent times, he has maintained a high standard claiming third place finishes at each of the 2023 Amsterdam Marathon and 2024 NN Marathon Rotterdam to suggest he will be a podium challenger in Shanghai. 

In the women’s race, the NN Running boast a strong twin challenge in the shape of evergreen Selly Chepyego and emerging talent Tiruye Mesfin. Now aged 40, Chepyego will hope to go one better than at the 2023 Shanghai Marathon when she placed second. 

A World Half Marathon bronze medallist back in 2014 she made her marathon debut the following year and has carved out an accomplished international career. A former podium finisher at both the Berlin and Rotterdam Marathons she claimed the biggest victory of her career in 2022 as victor in the Frankfurt Marathon. She has also worn the Kenyan vest with pride when seventh at the 2023 World Championship marathon in Budapest. 

She is joined on the NN Running Team by Mesfin, who is in the relatively early stages of her marathon development. Making an impressive debut marathon in Valencia in 2022, recording 2:18:47 for sixth, she has since accumulated several high-class performances. Second in the 2023 Hamburg Marathon, last year the Ethiopian trimmed 12 seconds from her lifetime best when third in the Valencia Marathon. Earlier this year she placed fourth in the NN Marathon Rotterdam to suggest she will be a serious threat on the streets of Shanghai. 

The Shanghai Marathon was first contested in 1996 and is earning a rising reputation among the global marathon elite. Starting at the Bund Bull the race route passes through the Bund, Nanjing Road Pedestrian Street, Jing’an Temple, Huaihai Road, Xintiandi, Longteng Avenue and Longhua Road before finishing at Xujiahui Sport Park. 

The race starts at 7 AM local time on Sunday 30 November 2025.

Information to come.