The World Marathon Majors
Status: 6 of 7 – Original Six-Star Medal
- 🇩🇪 Berlin, 2013
- 🇬🇧 London, 2015
- 🇺🇸 Boston, 2023
- 🇺🇸 New York City, 2023
- 🇺🇸 Chicago, 2024
- 🇯🇵 Tokyo, 2026
- 🇦🇺 Sydney, N/A
In the year 2006, the five most renowned and prestigious marathons in the world established the World Marathon Majors. In 2013, a sixth one joined the bunch and the Six-Star medal was introduced. In 2025, a seventh was the start of yet another expansion. The goal is to promote marathon running, and while mostly aimed at elevating professional elite-level running, it transformed those six races into the most popular ones for amateur athletes, as well—if they hadn’t been already.
The current seven marathons are: Boston, London, Berlin, Chicago, New York City, Tokyo (since 2013), and Sydney (since 2025).
When I did my EU project of running every single capital city marathon of the then 28 member states, I also inadvertently checked two of the Majors. Berlin and London, the latter of which used to be part of the Union at the time. While running New York City marathon had always been a dream of mine, I wasn’t particularly keen on running all the remaining ones. It also seemed so unattainable to me. That was until I trained really hard and in 2022 managed to qualify for Boston by accident. I couldn’t pass up on the chance, because I knew how hard it is to get into legendary Boston Marathon, and I was vaguely aware of the history and greatness of that race. It’s been the first annual marathon race ever, going since 1897. So by using the “now or possibly never” argument I went to Boston, ran the race, and became hooked on completing the other Majors as well.
Even before I traveled to Boston in spring of 2023, but after having qualified, I tried to get a ticket to realize my long dream of running New York City that same year, and succeeded. Two Majors in one year! New York was even better than Boston for my taste, but both just played in a league of their own.
So when those two marathons convinced me that running these Majors is a really worthwhile activity, I looked into the next two marathons, Chicago and Tokyo. Chicago turned out to be easy to get into, because I had that fast qualifying race from 2022 ready, and that one still counted towards a signup for Chicago 2024. So I took the bull by its horns, went there, ran until the finish line, and also wasn’t disappointed. What a race!
Tokyo Marathon is just as tough to get into, but in a different way. The time qualifier slots are for semi-professionals (2:28h for men, but still only a few hundred slots), so my fast marathons don’t get me far here. In the end, after about five or six years of lottery fails I finally got lucky to receive the invite for the 2026 edition on March 1st. The journey was actually not too expensive in the end, due to the weak yen at the time. It’s been a wonderful race in Tokyo, flawlessly organized, but with an expected lack of enthusiastic crowd support—especially when compared to those three frantic American cities’ atmospheres.
Finally getting that huge 6-Star Medal hung around my neck for sure has been an occasion to remember! World Marathon Majors Finisher, what a title.
The recent expansion, starting with Sydney from 2025 on, is another story. I don’t know when I’ll be able to go there. But since I love running, big races and huge global cities, it’s just fun to follow reaching this arbitrary goal whenever possible. I have learned that these ridiculous plans lead to me having great experiences and making cool memories which will remain until old age, hopefully.
I was happy to learn that a few more races will be joining the Majors to more evenly distribute them around the world. 🇿🇦 Cape Town, South Africa, as well as 🇨🇳 Shanghai, China, are in the candidate stage. It’s great to expand the circle and diversity of the races this way and I’ll try to go to them all at one point, sooner or later. At least that’s the plan.
