The Garmin watch Amos Kipruto wore to win the Chicago Marathon

Amos Kipruto won the 2026 Chicago Marathon in a blistering 2:01:09, and the watch on his wrist looks familiar. We contacted his manager, who confirmed it was a Garmin but told us that Kipruto himself didn’t know the exact model. After going through race photos from Chicago and comparing them with images from his previous marathons, we believe the Kenyan was wearing a Forerunner 955.

That would make his choice particularly interesting. The Forerunner 955 arrived way back in 2022, so Kipruto appears to have just won one of the world’s biggest marathons with a Garmin that is now several generations old.

The official Chicago Marathon results put Kipruto comfortably ahead of Ethiopia’s Tadese Bikila, who finished second in 2:02:56. Milkesa Mengesha took third in 2:03:46, while defending champion Jacob Kiplimo faded to fourth after running with Kipruto for much of the race.

Kipruto’s 2:01:09 was also a major personal best. He finished runner-up in Chicago last year in 2:03:54, but this time pulled away late in the race and ran the second-fastest marathon ever recorded on US soil.

The watch looks like a Forerunner 955

Identifying a watch from marathon photos is never completely straightforward, particularly when Garmin has several round sports watches with similar five-button designs. We initially considered the Forerunner 965, Forerunner 570 and Fenix 7 series as possibilities.

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The more photos we looked at, though, the more the Forerunner 955 stood out.

The biggest clue is the area surrounding the screen. Kipruto’s watch appears to have the relatively broad black bezel and smaller display of the 955. Garmin’s older model uses a 1.3-inch MIP display inside a 46.5 mm case, giving it noticeably more material around the screen than newer models such as the 47 mm Forerunner 570 and Forerunner 965, both of which use larger 1.4-inch AMOLED displays.

The Fenix family is less convincing as well. Models such as the Fenix 7 have a much more obvious metal bezel, including visible screws around the front. Those details don’t appear on Kipruto’s watch in the clearer race photos.

There is another clue that makes the 955 identification stronger. Photos of Kipruto from previous races show what appears to be the same Garmin.

Images from the 2023 London Marathon already show a watch with very similar proportions, while photographs from the 2024 and 2025 Chicago Marathons show the same broad black surround around the display.

We can’t tell whether this is the standard Forerunner 955 or the Solar version. The two look very similar from a distance, and the photographs don’t give us enough detail to reliably identify the solar charging ring.

Still a very capable running watch

There is nothing particularly surprising about an elite runner sticking with older hardware if it works. The Forerunner 955 offers multi-band GPS, Garmin’s SatIQ technology, running power, training readiness, recovery metrics and up to 42 hours of GPS battery life.

I still wear the Forerunner 955 myself and see little reason to upgrade. It does everything I need, and I continue to use it as a reference device when testing other wearables. Its GPS accuracy remains excellent, although I do pair it with a chest strap for more intensive runs.

Kipruto certainly isn’t short of newer Garmin options in 2026. The company has released several generations of Forerunners since the 955, along with much newer Fenix hardware.

But if our identification is correct, Kipruto has just run 2:01:09 wearing a watch that came out more than four years ago. Clearly, the older hardware is still getting the job done.