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Aug 15 Chicago Marathon 2027 Lottery: What to Expect Aug 15 Berlin Marathon 2027 Ballot: What to Expect Aug 15 How Many Runners Are in Each Marathon Major? Aug 13 Tokyo vs Berlin: Which Fast Major Can You Actually Get Into? Aug 12 How Marathon Charity Places Actually Work Aug 11 Why Do the Biggest Marathons Use a Lottery? Aug 11 Marathon Tour Operator Entry: The Guaranteed Bib Route Aug 10 Guaranteed Entry Routes at the Majors, Ranked by Effort Aug 10 London vs Berlin: Ballot Odds, Costs, and Courses Compared Aug 09 Ballot, Lottery, Drawing: What Each Major Calls It
[ Wire ] · Dispatch · Aug 15

How Many Runners Are in Each Marathon Major?

London fields the most runners of any Marathon Major at 56,000, followed by New York at 55,000 and Berlin at 54,000. Chicago runs 52,000, Tokyo and Sydney both field 40,000, Boston fields 30,000, and Cape Town, the newest Major, fields 27,000.

How many runners are in each Marathon Major?

  • London: 56,000
  • New York City: 55,000
  • Berlin: 54,000
  • Chicago: 52,000
  • Tokyo: 40,000, a record for the race after a bump for its 2027 20th-anniversary edition
  • Sydney: 40,000
  • Boston: 30,000
  • Cape Town: 27,000, Africa's first Major

Full detail for any race, including its entry timeline and course, is on its own race page.

Does a bigger field mean better odds?

Not directly. Field size is the denominator, but the real story is how many people are chasing it. London's 56,000-person field is the largest of the Majors, yet its ballot odds sit near 1.3%, because roughly 1.34 million people applied for the 2027 race. New York's 55,000-person field produces similarly long odds, near 1%, against 240,000-plus applicants. Meanwhile Sydney and Chicago field smaller totals but post far better odds, roughly 32.5% and 25%, because far fewer people are applying relative to the spots. A race's field size tells you how many people finish; its application count is what actually sets your chances. The ballot odds at all 8 Majors, ranked lines the two numbers up side by side.

What makes up the field, beyond the lottery?

None of the Majors fills its field through the general ballot alone. Every race splits its places across some mix of a lottery or qualifying window, time-qualifier standards (Good for Age at London and Berlin, age-graded standards at Chicago and Tokyo), charity partner places, and a small elite or invited-athlete pool. Boston is the outlier: its 30,000 places come almost entirely through certified qualifying times or its BQ-adjacent lottery for near-qualifiers, not a general public ballot. None of the Majors publishes an exact place-by-place breakdown of the split, so this site never estimates one, but the entry type and time-qualifier standards for each race are on its race page, and the charity minimum required for a guaranteed bib is listed there too.

Is any field size changing?

Tokyo is the clearest recent example: the race grew its field to a record 40,000 for the March 2027, 20th-anniversary edition, up from prior years. No other Major has announced a field-size change for its next edition as of this writing. Alerts on this site catch date and window changes the moment organizers publish them, which is usually the first place a field-size bump gets mentioned too.

Once you know a race's field size and its ballot odds, the next question is usually how those odds hold up if you enter more than once. The Marathon Ballot Simulator models that for any of the 8 Majors.

Sources: Abbott World Marathon Majors, individual race organizer pages linked above.

Sources Abbott World Marathon Majors race organizers Field sizes and entry-mix figures from each organizer's own published numbers, cross-checked against this site's individual race pages (accessed August 15, 2026).