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[ Wire ] · Dispatch · Jul 29

Tokyo Crowns More Six Star Finishers Than Any Major

Abbott World Marathon Majors lists 1,639 Six Star finishers from the Tokyo Marathon 2026, the largest class of any race on its Six Star stats page. Boston 2026 produced 715, Chicago 2025 produced 425, London 2026 produced 201 and Berlin 2025 produced 146. Tokyo mints more Six Star medals than any other Major.

Why does Tokyo produce so many Six Star finishers?

Tokyo is the first Major of the calendar year, and it is the hardest of the original six for most overseas runners to enter, with a general lottery running at a published acceptance rate of roughly 10% and no mass qualifying route. Runners who have collected the other five and are waiting on one race tend to be waiting on Tokyo. When they finally draw it, they finish their set in March.

Does the Six Star medal still mean six races?

Yes. Abbott is explicit that the Six Star medal remains in place for the original six: Tokyo, Boston, London, Berlin, Chicago and New York. Sydney, which became a Major in 2024, and Cape Town, confirmed as the eighth in June 2026, do not count toward it.

What comes after Six Star?

An Eight Star medal for runners who complete the original six plus Sydney and Cape Town. A Nine Star level is conditional on the Shanghai Marathon completing its evaluation as a candidate race. Abbott has also said it will celebrate seven-star finishers in due course following Sydney's addition, and the Hall of Fame is being expanded accordingly.

How do I claim my stars?

Through the Runner Portal, which auto-matches prior race results. Abbott's system holds results back to 2006 for most Majors and back to 2013 for Tokyo, the year Tokyo joined the series. Anything unmatched can be claimed manually with a finisher's certificate as proof. Progress across all eight can be tracked in the Six Star tracker.

What does this mean if Tokyo is your last star?

It means the lottery is the bottleneck, and the calendar is unforgiving: one draw a year, results in September, race the following March. The 2027 general entry window opens August 14 and closes August 28, 2026, with the field expanding to a record 40,000 places. Entry routes and past acceptance rates are on the Tokyo Marathon page, and every route for this cycle is compared in how to enter the Tokyo Marathon.

Free alerts cover every Major's ballot window, which matters most for the one race standing between a runner and a completed set.

Sources: Abbott World Marathon Majors: Six Star Finisher Stats, Abbott World Marathon Majors: How the Six Star Medal works

Sources Abbott World Marathon Majors Per-race Six Star finisher class sizes quoted from the Abbott World Marathon Majors Six Star Finisher Stats page, which labels them as 'each race's latest class of Six Star Finishers' (accessed July 29, 2026). Six Star, Eight Star and Nine Star medal rules from worldmarathonmajors.com/six-star/how-it-works. Abbott does not publish a running all-time total on either page.