Winning the NYC Marathon, Abdi Nageeye turns disappointment into triumph
Abdi Nageeye, who was born in Somalia and resettled as a refugee in the Netherlands at 6 years old, became the first athlete from his adopted country to capture a New York City Marathon men’s open division title on Sunday when he crossed the finish line in Central Park at the 2:07:39 mark.
Nageeye distanced himself from the field in the final stretch of the race, outlasting the 2022 marathon winner Evans Chebet by a mere six seconds. Albert Korir, the 2021 marathon champion, finished third. Conner Mantz, who was the top finisher from the United States at the 2024 Paris Olympics Marathon last summer, was also the top American on Sunday, finishing in sixth at 2:09:00.
“I feel really happy with [the race] because I didn’t perform [well] in the Olympics, and that really was one of my biggest disappointments ever,” Nageeye said. The 35-year-old finished second at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics but had to pull out of the Paris Olympics marathon at the midpoint.
“So I went back to training, and I told myself, you will never get it back,” he said. “You can only do one thing: in less than two months you can do something great at the greatest marathon in the world, so focus on that.”
He did just that.
The morning after, celebrating his win at the Empire State Building in New York City, he told the AmNews that he was extremely pleased with the accomplishment.
“I will be happy to go today to my family,” he shared. “I really feel proud and I’m just looking around [on the 86th floor] and I’m like, it’s just amazing.”
As the first Dutch person to win the New York City Marathon, he said the entire country was proud, including Willem-Alexander, the King of the Netherlands.
“Everyone is talking about it back home and everyone knows that this is my 23rd marathon and everyone knows where I come from and that I never gave up,” he shared “The Olympics were so sad for me, I was so disappointed. But then to go back to training and in less than two months to come here again and show the world you can have setbacks, but you don’t have to give up.” American Daniel Romanchuk won the men’s wheelchair division, becoming the only American to earn three titles in the race and, along with Susannah Scaroni, became the first American duo to sweep the wheelchair division in marathon history.
“It’s great to be able to do that with my teammate Susannah,” he shared. “We trained together out in Champaign, Illinois, and it was so great to be able to do that with a teammate,” he said to the AmNews.
Sunday’s marathon saw more than 50,000 runners from nearly 150 countries and all 50 states from the U.S. take part in the 26.2 mile run.
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