Marathon Magic

It’s official: The Sydney Marathon is now the seventh Major of the Abbott World Marathon Majors, a running event series that encompasses the most renowned marathons in the world: Tokyo, Boston, London, Berlin, Chicago, New York City—and now, Sydney.

Tokyo was the last marathon added to the World Marathon Majors in 2013. Three years later, the Six Star Medal was born to honor those who had successfully run all six Majors.

For those currently pursing their Six Star Medal, or those inspired by the latest announcement to start their running journey, here’s what you need to know about Sydney’s induction into the World Marathon Majors.

1. The Sydney Marathon will take place on Sunday, August 31, 2025: August is Australia’s last winter month, which means temperatures will be nice and cool on race day. Sydney’s average temps this time of year range from 48°-65°F (8-18°C). Since winter is not as busy of a tourist season, you can (hopefully) expect reasonable hotel rates and lower crowds even with the marathon.
2. The predicted field size for the 2025 race is 33,000: This is a sizable jump from the 2024 race, which had a little over 20,000 finishers, and brings the race on par with some of the other Majors. The Tokyo Marathon had about 35K finishers in 2024 and Boston typically sees around 30K finishers each year. Comparatively, the London, Chicago, and New York City Marathons all have more than 50K finishers every year.
3. Right now, they’ve only announced two ways to enter the 2025 race: Guaranteed entry via the Candidacy Club—these are folks who successfully ran the Sydney Marathon while the race was still a candidate for the Majors, so that would be either in 2022, 2023, and/or 2024)—and non-guaranteed entry via the general lottery. Race organizers anticipate sharing more info on these entry methods in December.
4. But there will be other ways to secure a 2025 entry: While nothing has officially been announced yet about securing entry through other approaches, like through a charity or a time-qualifier, several tour providers, like Marathon Tours & Travel and Sports Tours International, have already shared details about 2025 Sydney Marathon packages on their websites. Hopefully details about all the possible entry methods will be shared in early December when race organizers publish more info on the general lottery.
5. Your odds of getting into the 2025 are decent, I think: I caveat that because it’s hard to understand the true demand for the Sydney Marathon. Before it became a Major, all you had to do to participate was sign up and pay a fee, so there aren’t statistics around how many people wanted to run the 2024 race but got turned away because it was already full. What is clear though is race organizers have excelled at expanding the marathon’s footprint—and quickly. In 2022, the Sydney Marathon had about 5,000 participants whereas this year’s race sold out at around 24,000 participants—that’s almost a 400% increase in field size! While yes, these numbers show demand has risen, it also shows the race has worked hard to accommodate more and more runners each year, which means more opportunity for you. Sydney’s official designation as a Major will drive this demand further of course, but since the race doesn’t count toward a Six Star Medal, and that’s what most folks are currently working toward, I believe your chances of getting in are slightly better than any other Major. But as with any Major, it will likely get harder to secure an entry each passing year.
6. There will be no Seven Star medal: Even though Sydney is the 7th Major and you can claim a “star” for successfully running the race, Abbott does not plan to create another medal to honor the new milestone. Instead, they’ll continue having the Six Star Medal and will possibly develop a Nine Star Medal if/when the two other candidate races—Cape Town and Shanghai— are added to the series. Medal or not, running Sydney and any race is a fantastic accomplishment!
7. There are a select few of you who will retroactively be awarded a star for the Sydney Marathon: If you took part in Sydney’s 2024 Abbott World Marathon Majors Marathon Tours & Travel Age Group World Championships this past September, you’ll be awarded a “star” in your online runner portal.
8. There’s an email list for the Sydney Marathon: I know, I know, we get too many emails already. But signing up for the newsletter is the best way to get timely updates on next year’s race, including info on the lottery.

If you’ve run the Sydney Marathon in the past, what did you love most about the race?