The Liberia Marathon has a familiar champion. Amadu Sajor Samura of Sierra Leone won the full marathon on Sunday morning, taking the seventh edition of the race and defending the title he claimed in 2025.

Samura, running in bib 144, was the story of the race almost from the start. Photos and video from the course showed him out front on the road from Paynesville into Monrovia, escorted by an official cyclist, and by the time he reached the finish at the Samuel Kanyon Doe Sports Complex there was no catching him. Speaking after the race, medal around his neck, he said he was happy and proud to have won it again, and that his people back home would be proud too.

Behind him, Monrovia belonged to the runners. Organisers had expected around 3,500 participants across the day's races, and the streets filled from before dawn: roads on the course closed at 5:30 in the morning, the full marathon and half marathon set off at about 6:00, and thousands of amateurs in white event shirts followed the elites through the capital under this year's theme, "Building Bridges, Breaking Barriers."

The programme stretched well beyond the headline race. Alongside the full 26.2-mile marathon and the half marathon there was a 10-kilometre footrace, a 10-kilometre wheelchair race, a 10-kilometre crutches race and a VIP race — a line-up that has made the marathon, in Race Coordinator Daniel Dean's words, second only to football in national significance. The course is certified by World Athletics and timed by electronic chip, and finishers went home with a medal shaped like the map of Liberia. Among the familiar faces in the 10K was musician CIC, who posted his finisher's medal to his followers after completing the run.

Samura's win set off the day's loudest conversation. Congratulations poured in from Liberian fans, mixed with a running national debate — half teasing, half serious — about why the country's biggest race has now been won twice in a row by a visitor, and what Liberian distance running needs to change that. It is a rivalry as old as the Mano River, and on Sunday Sierra Leone took the honours again.

What to watch next: the organisers' official results, including Samura's winning time and the women's and wheelchair champions; and whether a Liberian challenger steps up before the eighth edition.