The Tokyo Marathon has come a long way since its first edition in 2007. We all know the beginning and end, but what exactly did that journey look like in the middle? 38,472 participants, 46% of whom were international, and 73.9% of whom were men. Those are the stats from 2026, but without the story of what came before them, they’re nothing but numbers. This article tracks the growth of the Tokyo Marathon, year-by-year* and number-by-number, to see what we can really learn about its journey as a major.
*Data from the years 2020, 2021 and 2022 has not been included due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the running of the Tokyo Marathon
Number of Participants
| 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 |
| 26,058 | 27,386 | 30,164 | 32,080 | 33,353 | 35,954 | 36,228 | 35,556 | 35,310 | 36,173 | 35,378 | 35,911 | 37,694 | 38,231 | 38,231 | 37,480 | 38,472 |
A 12,414 person increase in participants across 19 years. That might sound like a large figure, but when you consider it in the context of major marathons as a whole, it comes up looking rather small. But that’s not the key takeaway from this data. The key takeaway is that 82% of this growth happened before 2013, and before Tokyo even became a major marathon.
Now there could be several explanations for this. First of all, the Tokyo Marathon had only been functioning in its current format for 6 years before it became a major, which means it was still growing internally, let alone internationally, by 2013. For the other major marathons, that initial rapid growth each one experiences after inception, lies a lot further in the past.
How international is the Tokyo Marathon?
The other point to make has to do with international participation. The Tokyo Marathon is overwhelmingly local, and it’s that growth which took it up to 36,228 starters in 2013. But these numbers don’t tell the whole story. The Tokyo Marathon has a strict capacity limit, so any growth that surpasses its current capacity of 38,500 runners, will be masked.
What the first table of data doesn’t tell you is that even though the number of starters wasn’t increasing rapidly after the Tokyo Marathon became a major, its international participation was.
| 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | |
| % international participants | 14% | 15% | 18% | 18% | 18% | 21% | 31% | 35% | 46% |
In the 12 years since Tokyo became a major marathon, its international participation has increased by 32%, all the way up to the nearly 50/50 split it’s at today. If we look at how the overall number of participants changed between those same years of 2014 to 2025, the percentage increase is a lot smaller, at around 8%.
Tokyo Marathon vs London Marathon- a growth comparison
To prove my point about growth, let’s take a look at another major marathon. The London Marathon is widely considered to be the largest and most in-demand of all the majors, but its figures might surprise you. In 2014, the London Marathon also had around 36,000 participants. By 2025, it had upwards of 56,000. In the same time period, that’s a lot more growth than Tokyo: almost 50% more. This also coming from a race that had already been a major for 8 years by 2014, not just one.
But when we turn the focus to international participation, that’s where the roles reverse. In 2025, out of those 56,640 London Marathon finishers, 46,353 were from Great Britain. That’s almost 82%. The rate of international participation in London in 2025, is equivalent to that of Tokyo in 2016. The Tokyo Marathon can’t simply expand its capacity in great waves like London: the city is limited by its narrow streets, and infrastructural barriers. It’s not a lack of want to grow, it’s a lack of opportunity.
But the London Marathon serves as proof: increased capacity doesn’t mean increased diversity of participants, in fact often the opposite. These two forms of growth are separate choices, and not necessarily compatible ones.
Number of applicants
Another thing the number of participants hides? Demand. Interestingly though, the number of applicants for the Tokyo Marathon follows the same trend as its number of participants, as if in positive correlation. Rapid growth in the early stages, and no significant increase upon reaching major marathon status.
| 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 |
| 77,521 | 130,062 | 226,378 | 272,134 | 294,496 | 282,824 | 303,450 | 303,386 | 304,825 | 308,810 | 321,459 | 319,777 | 330,271 |
This data may be saying one thing, but what we looked at with regards to international participation says another. Despite appearances, the Tokyo Marathon hasn’t reached a plateau. A capacity limit of 38,500 means only around 10% of applicants will get to participate in the marathon. That same limit on the Tokyo Marathon size and the resulting disincentive to continue applying year after year, isn’t conducive to a huge increase in applications. But the Tokyo Marathon is also making a conscious choice: the lack of immense growth in applications isn’t only due to external factors. In the beginning, the focus was on increasing capacity, but now that’s no longer possible, that same focus has had to shift.
The size of the marathon isn’t changing, but its make-up is. For Tokyo, growth isn’t literal, it’s figurative. More people are coming to Tokyo, without it having to go to them.
How fast is the Tokyo Marathon field?
Let me bring back my London Marathon comparison, because there’s another aspect of the field Tokyo has been very intent on improving: its speed. Growth isn’t just measured in size when it comes to major marathons, but quality too. At the very root of their status is elite running, and the Tokyo Marathon has wasted no time in proving itself in this area.
| 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 | |
| % sub-3 hour finishers | 2 | 2.7 | 2.2 | 1.7 | 2.2 | 2.5 | 2.3 | 2.4 | 3.2 | 3.3 | 4.2 | 4.4 | 4.7 | 4.6 | 4.9 | 4.9 | 5.6 |
Before becoming a major marathon, the percentage of sub-3 hour finishers in Tokyo hovered around the 2% mark. In its first 6 years from 2007-2013, the net increase was 0.3%. In its next 6 years from 2013-2019, the net increase was 2.4%. 13 years have passed since major status, and in that period the Tokyo Marathon has increased its percentage of sub-3 hour finishers by 3.3%, to reach a new peak of 5.6% at the latest 2026 edition. Tokyo isn’t using its status to attract more runners, it’s using it to attract faster runners.
Now this is where London comes in. At its 2025 edition, 5.26% of runners finished in under 3 hours, whereas in 2024, that number lay at 6.9%. A net decrease. The only difference between then and now, is the record-breaking field size. It just goes to show you can’t have it all. Each major marathon is unique, and whether by fate or by design, each experiences growth in a different way. The one thing they share is that that growth is undoubtedly elevated by their major label.
Gender distribution
| 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 | |
| % Men | 77.7 | 77.8 | 78.3 | 78.9 | 76.1 | 78.9 | 79.9 | 79.7 | 78.8 | 78.1 | 77.3 | 77.1 | 76.8 | 76.4 | 76.4 | 73.8 | 73.9 |
| % Women | 22.3 | 22.2 | 21.7 | 21.1 | 23.9 | 21.1 | 20.1 | 20.3 | 21.2 | 21.9 | 22.7 | 22.9 | 23.2 | 23.6 | 23.6 | 26.1 | 26.1 |
This is the first set of data where instead of 2013 being where growth reaches its peak, the year Tokyo became a major actually acts as a turning point. From 2013 onwards the gender distribution of the marathon has been on a gradual descent towards equality, improving almost year on year without exception. Of course it goes without saying that a field of almost 75% men is still far from equal, but this is where context becomes necessary.
Before 2007, the Tokyo Marathon operated as two separate races, one for men and one for women. But the culture of female-only marathons far predates it. The Nagoya Women’s Marathon started in 1980, a nearby option just one week after the Tokyo Marathon on the calendar, and it has since transformed into the largest female-only marathon worldwide. While Tokyo is now a mixed gender race, tradition is hard to shake, and for many local women the Nagoya Marathon remains the preferred option.
What is the relationship between gender distribution and international participation?
That’s just it though: local. The key to analysing gender distribution at the Tokyo Marathon is to not look at it in isolation. Because its trajectory is very closely linked to another set of data we’ve just observed: international participation. Look at the years 2024 and 2025. The percentage of international participants went from 35% to 46%: an 11% increase. Those same years the percentage of male participants went from 76.4% to 73.8%: a 2.6% decrease. Those are the biggest changes each set of data has seen, and they both happened in the same time period.
It’s not a coincidence: both sets of data follow the same pattern. As international participation increases, the percentage of male participants decreases. Tokyo’s uneven gender split comes rooted in local culture, and a growing outside influence will only serve to dilute it.
What does this data tell us about the growth of the Tokyo Marathon?
Each set of data tells its own story. But multiple viewpoints don’t always make for multiple conclusions, and in this case there is a common undercurrent. The Tokyo Marathon has been on a steady rise since its beginnings in 2007, a rise accelerated by its recognition as an Abbott World Marathon Major, albeit not in ways you might expect. The influence that title has may be hidden to the human eye, but it is captured in these figures. The Tokyo Marathon has leveraged the opportunity to cultivate a more elite and more international field, in the face of restraints in terms of size. The label provides a springboard, but it’s up to each major marathon to decide how to launch themselves off it.
Written by- Rosana Ercilla
