X50-54: Larkin edges Gregory in a tight London finish

• Rob Larkin won the X50-54 group in 4:09:49 (9:32/mi), holding off Andrew Gregory by just 55 seconds across 26.2 miles.
• Gregory's strongest segment came on the 30K–35K stretch, where he posted the 24th-fastest split among the women's field — Larkin answered late, clocking the 17th-fastest women's-field split on the 40K–to-finish push.
• Alejandro Diesta-Troutman was the quickest of the remaining five on the 10K–15K leg (37th-fastest among women), finishing 3rd in 5:02:52 — nearly an hour behind the top two.
• Tim Lupton and Ann Holloway rounded out the seven-finisher group, separated by just 2:02 at the back of the field.

The X50-54 story at London 2026 was really a two-man race at the front. Rob Larkin and Andrew Gregory ran within touching distance for the better part of four hours — never more than a handful of places apart in the women's field standings throughout — before Larkin found another gear over the final 2.2 miles. His 17th-fastest women's-field split on that closing stretch was the decisive move, and 55 seconds was all that separated them at the line.

Gregory was no passenger. His 30K–35K segment was the sharper of the two men's best individual legs, and he briefly closed the gap in the race's middle miles. But Larkin's late surge proved unanswerable. Both men came in under 4:11 — a solid effort on a breezy London day with 14 mph winds in the mix.

Behind them, Alejandro Diesta-Troutman, Craig Broadbent, and Marcus Ward filled out the middle of the group across a spread of roughly 18 minutes, each tracking a progressively fading arc through the back half — Ward, in particular, dropped from 31st to 57th among women between 5K and the finish. At the back, Lupton and Holloway both crossed in the 7:30 range, Holloway completing the group just two minutes adrift of Lupton after what was clearly a very different kind of marathon day.