Lewis will be the official starter of the elite women’s and men’s races as well as the mass event.
Lewis won a gold medal in the heptathlon at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, capping a magnificent career that also included two Commonwealth Games gold medals and a European Championship title.
She was part of BBC Sport’s athletics coverage since retiring in 2005 until last year when she was made President of UK Athletics. She was made a Dame in the 2023 New Year Honours List.
Joining her as an official starter will be Whitehead – a Paralympic record-holder and the T42 200m gold medallist in both the 2012 London and 2016 Rio Olympic Games – who will start the elite wheelchair races.
Whitehead, a double amputee, has run the London Marathon multiple times, achieving a world record for the fastest double amputee marathon with a time of 2:42:01 at the 2024 TCS London Marathon, which he then broke in Chicago in October 2024 with a time of 2:41:36. He will join the masses after he sets the elite wheelchair races on their way.
A world record number of participants are expected to take part in tomorrow’s 2025 TCS London Marathon with more than 56,000 people expected on the Start Line. The current record for the biggest marathon in the world is 55,646 finishers set by the TCS New York Marathon in November 2024.
The Start Line of the elite races will be stacked with some of the best marathon athletes in the world, including Paris Paralympic gold medallists Marcel Hug and Catherine Debrunner in the wheelchair races, and Paris Olympic champions Sifan Hassan and Tamirat Tola leading the women’s and men’s fields, respectively. They will be joined by arguably the greatest marathon runner of all time – Eliud Kipchoge.
This year, the wheelchair race will get underway at 08:50, followed by the women’s elite at 09:05 and the men’s elite and mass event starting at 09:35.
Previous starters of the London Marathon include Queen Elizabeth II, the Prince and Princess of Wales with the Duke of Sussex, Sir Andy Murray, Lionesses Leah Williamson OBE, Jill Scott MBE and Ellen White MBE, Sir Steve Redgrave, and Dame Kelly Holmes.