Marathon at the Summer Olympics
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The marathon at the Summer Olympics is the only road running event held at the multi-sport event. The men's marathon has been present on the Olympic athletics programme since the first modern Olympics in 1896. Nearly ninety years later, the women's event was added to the programme at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.
| Marathon at the Olympic Games | |
|---|---|
Burton Holmes' photograph entitled 1896: Three athletes in training for the marathon at the Olympic Games in Athens | |
| Overview | |
| Sport | Athletics |
| Gender | Men and women |
| Years held | Men: 1896–2024 Women: 1984–2024 |
| Olympic record | |
| Men | 2:06:26 Tamirat Tola (2024) |
| Women | 2:22:55 Sifan Hassan (2024) |
| Reigning champion | |
| Men |  Tamirat Tola (ETH) |
| Women |  Sifan Hassan (NED) |
History
The modern marathon event was created and later refined through the Olympic competition. The idea of holding a marathon race at the first Olympics was suggested to Pierre de Coubertin by Michel Bréal. Based upon a popular myth stemming from the Battle of Marathon, in which Pheidippides ran to Athens from the town of Marathon, Greece to carry the message of a Greek victory, the 1896 course began in the town of Marathon and finished in Athens' Panathenaic Stadium – a distance of around 40 kilometres (25 mi).[1] On April 10, 1896, Greek water-carrier Spyridon Louis won the first Olympic marathon in 2 hours 58 minutes and 50 seconds. The route between Marathon and Panathenaic Stadium was repeated when Athens hosted the 2004 Games.
The race distance varied from 40 to 42 kilometres (25 to 26 mi) in the early editions as it was typically based upon the distance between two points that the organisers felt were suitable. The 1908 London Olympics marked the introduction of the standard distance of 26 miles, 385 yards (42.195 km).[2] However, it was not until the 1924 Paris Olympics that this distance became the standard at the Olympics.[3]
The Olympic marathon proved immediately popular in the Western world and quickly spawned numerous long-running annual races, including the Boston Marathon in 1897, the Tour de Paris Marathon in 1902, the Yonkers Marathon in 1907, and the London Polytechnic Marathon in 1909. Such marathons played a key role in the expansion of the road running movement internationally over the course of the 20th century.[4][5]
Until the 2016 Summer Olympics, it was tradition for the men's marathon to be held on the last day of the Games. However, due to changes to the Olympic program in 2020 and 2024, the women's marathon was held on the last day.[6] The first time the marathon finish line took place inside the Olympic Stadium was at the 1908 Summer Olympics. This is something that has only been changed on a handful of occasions, the first time being at the 1936 Summer Olympics, when the event took place on a racing circuit. At the 1960 Summer Olympics, held in Rome, the finish line was at the Arch of Constantine; at the 2012 Summer Olympics, the marathon route started and finished on The Mall; in 2016, the start and finish were in the Sambadrome Marquês de Sapucaí;[7] at the 2020 Summer Olympics, which were delayed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the marathon did not take place in the host city of Tokyo due to extreme weather conditions;[8][9] in 2024, the route finished at the Esplanade des Invalides.[10]
The Olympic records for the event are 2:06:26 hours for men, set by Tamirat Tola in 2024, and 2:22:55 hours for women, set by Sifan Hassan in 2024. The men's marathon world record has been improved several times at the Olympics: in 1908, 1920, and then at successive Olympics by Abebe Bikila in 1960 and 1964.[11] Abebe Bikila, Waldemar Cierpinski, and Eliud Kipchoge are the only athletes to have won two Olympic gold medals in the marathon. No athlete has won more than two medals of any colour. Ethiopia have won the most gold medals in the event, with six, while Kenya has the greatest medal total with fifteen overall.
Medal summary
Men
Multiple medalists
| Rank | Athlete | Nation | Olympics | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1= | Abebe Bikila | Ethiopia | 1960–1964 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| 1= | Waldemar Cierpinski |  East Germany | 1976–1980 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| 1= | Eliud Kipchoge |  Kenya | 2016–2020 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| 4 | Frank Shorter |  United States | 1972–1976 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| 5 | Mamo Wolde | Ethiopia | 1968–1972 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| 6= | Karel Lismont |  Belgium | 1972–1976 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| 6= | Erick Wainaina | Kenya | 1996–2000 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| 6= | Bashir Abdi | Belgium | 2020–2024 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
Medals by country
- As of the 2020 Olympics
| Rank | Nation | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ethiopia | 5 | 1 | 3 | 9 |
| 2 | Kenya | 3 | 3 | 2 | 8 |
| 3 | United States | 3 | 2 | 5 | 10 |
| 4 |  France | 3 | 2 | 0 | 5 |
| 5 |  South Africa | 2 | 2 | 0 | 4 |
| 6 |  Italy | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| 7 |  Argentina | 2 | 1 | 0 | 3 |
| 8 |  Finland | 2 | 0 | 3 | 5 |
| 9 | East Germany | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| 10 |  Japan | 1 | 2 | 2 | 5 |
| 11 |  Greece | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
 South Korea | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | |
| 13 |  Czechoslovakia | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
 Portugal | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | |
 Uganda | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | |
| 16 |  Great Britain | 0 | 4 | 1 | 5 |
| 17 |  Morocco | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| Netherlands | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 | |
| 19 | Belgium | 0 | 1 | 3 | 4 |
| 20 |  Chile | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
 Estonia | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | |
 Ireland | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | |
 Yugoslavia | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | |
| 24 |  New Zealand | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
 Sweden | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | |
| 26 |  Brazil | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
 Djibouti | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | |
 Germany | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | |
 Hungary | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | |
 Soviet Union | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | |
| Totals (30 entries) | 30 | 29 | 29 | 88 | |
Women
Multiple medalists
| Rank | Athlete | Nation | Olympics | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Valentina Yegorova |  Unified Team Russia | 1992–1996 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| 2 | Rosa Mota | Portugal | 1984–1988 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| 3 | Catherine Ndereba | Kenya | 2004–2008 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 4 | Yuko Arimori | Japan | 1992–1996 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
Medals by country
- As of the 2020 Olympics
| Rank | Nation | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kenya | 2 | 4 | 1 | 7 |
| 2 | Japan | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| 3 | Ethiopia | 2 | 0 | 1 | 3 |
| 4 |  Romania | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| 5 | United States | 1 | 0 | 2 | 3 |
| 6 | Portugal | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| 7 | Unified Team | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 8 | Russia | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| 9 |  Australia | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
 Bahrain | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | |
 Norway | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | |
| 12 |  China | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| East Germany | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | |
| New Zealand | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | |
| Totals (14 entries) | 10 | 10 | 10 | 30 | |
Intercalated Games
The 1906 Intercalated Games were held in Athens and at the time were officially recognised as part of the Olympic Games series, with the intention being to hold a games in Greece in two-year intervals between the internationally held Olympics. However, this plan never came to fruition and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) later decided not to recognise these games as part of the official Olympic series. Some sports historians continue to treat the results of these games as part of the Olympic canon.[17]
At this event a men's marathon was held over 41.86 km and Canada's Billy Sherring won the competition. John Svanberg, the runner-up in the 1906 5-mile race, was also runner-up in the marathon. American William Frank was the bronze medalist.[18]
| Games | Gold | Silver | Bronze |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1906 Athens |
 Billy Sherring (CAN) |
 John Svanberg (SWE) |
 William Frank (USA) |