Adidas Sweeps NYC Marathon as Adios Pro 3 Caps Super-Shoe Year

Adidas-backed runners won both elite titles at the 2026 New York City Marathon on Sunday, extending a season in which the brand's Adizero racing franchise took eight of 14 World Major Marathon wins.

Sheila Chepkirui of Kenya won the women's race in 2:24:36, wearing the Adidas Adizero Adios Pro 3. Jessica McClain of the United States finished second at 2:24:42, six seconds back. Defing champion Hellen Obiri, also of Kenya, took third at 2:24:43.

The result tightens a two-athlete grip on the event. Kenyan women have now won the last four New York Marathons, with Obiri taking 2023 and 2025 and Chepkirui taking 2024 and 2026.

Who won the men's race, and in what shoe?

Andreas Almgren of Sweden won the men's race in 2:06:01, beating Yemaneberhan Crippa of Italy (2:06:14) and Kamohelo Mofolo of Lesotho (2:06:26). Last year's winner, Kenya's Benson Kipruto, finished fourth at 2:06:27.

Almgren ran in the Nike Apex. The win is the first major marathon victory for the shoe, which Nike has not yet released to market. Launch is set for January.

The stakes for Nike are clear. The Apex carries two Air Zoom units stacked at the forefoot. Nike claims a 40 percent improvement in energy return versus the Alphafly 3, and 10 percent more than the Alphafly 4, which launched in September. Those figures are manufacturer claims; no independent test data accompanies them.

For Adidas, the New York results cap what the source describes as a dominant competitive year for the Adizero line.

How dominant was Adidas in 2026?

Of the 14 World Major Marathon winners in 2026, eight wore the Pro Evo 3 and one more won in the Pro Evo 2, per the source. That is nine of 14 majors for a single franchise family.

The evidence is specific:

• Sebastian Sawe of Kenya ran the first official sub-two-hour marathon at the London Marathon in the Adizero line, and Yomif Kejelcha became the second man under two hours at the same race, also in the Pro Evo 3.
• Tigst Assefa set a new women's world record in London.
• Runners in the Pro Evo 3 swept all three podium places at London, Berlin and Chicago.
• All six podium finishers at Berlin wore the Pro Evo 3.

The Berlin sweep exceeds a historical benchmark. At the 2016 Olympics, all three men's medalists wore the original Nike Vaporfly, the shoe that triggered the supershoe (carbon-plate, high-resilience foam) era.

What do the numbers on the Adios Pro 3 show?

The Adizero Adios Pro 3 weighs 97 grams in a men's size 9.5. That is 30 percent lighter than its predecessor, with a claimed 1.6 percent improvement in running economy (the energy cost of running at a given pace). Adidas calls it the lightest race-legal running shoe ever recorded.

The claim traces to a documented lineage. The Pro Evo 1 weighed 138 grams, itself considered exceptional at launch.

Charlotte Heidmann, Adidas category director for Adizero, framed the progression as a collaboration problem rather than a materials limit. "When you think you've reached the limit, you actually haven't. There's always more you can achieve," she told Footwear News in April. "When we introduced the Pro Evo 1, 138 grams was exceptional, and now we've reduced it even more. It's just me talking here today, but collaboration helps to achieve things you didn't think were possible some years ago."

Note what the statement does not say: Adidas has not published third-party validation of the 1.6 percent running-economy figure.

What happened last year in New York?

The 2025 edition split the podium differently. Obiri set a women's course record of 2:19:51 in the On Cloudboom Strike LS, winning her second New York title. Kipruto won the men's race in the Adidas Adizero Adios Pro Evo 2, in the event's closest-ever finish.

That means three brands — Adidas, Nike and On — have taken elite wins in New York across two years, and the competitive shoe market at the front of the marathon pack remains a three-way contest with no settled leader.

Nike will watch the Apex's January retail release closely. A win before launch is marketing; sell-through after launch is the test.