Study on European Marathons 2017

Last update: May 3rd, 2018

Figure 1: Number of participants 2010 - 2017

Whereas there was not much change in the number of participant for individual races, the increase was the result by some new events, in particular in the United Kingdom. Most important are the Birmingham International Marathon (more than 5200 Finishers) and Stirling Scottish Marathon (4300 Finisher).

Table 1 presents the races withmore than 10,000 Finisher. There was not much movement in this ranking. The races in Barcelona and in Sevilla overtook the Dublin Marathon, which expieriences a decline in participication by more than 5 per cent. All in all, 9 out of 16 races showed a decreasin number of runners. The highest increase was registered at the Brighton Marathon, which gained three places in the ranking. Noteworthily, four Spanish races can be found in this top list.

Table 1: European Marathons with more than 10,000 Finisher in 2017

The fluctuation in participation has not been very pronounced in 2017. The biggest winner among the races was Berlin Marathon, which gained 3000 runners (Table 3) Nevertheless Berlin continued to be on the third place among the "Big Three", since London and Paris showed increases, too, even if smaller ones. There is ine race in the winners list, which does nor belong to the Top-50 list; which ais the Gdansk Marathon in Poland.

Table 2: Biggest winners among European Marathons in 2017

Table 3 depicts the races that experiences the biggest losses in 2017. On the top of the list can be found the Orlen Warzawa Marathon (POL). In this context must be said that Warzawa is the only city with two major races per year. In the previous year, the Orlen Marathon gained importance against the Warszawa City Marathon. In 2017, both races showed a decline, but the Orlen Marathon the bigger one. For the next three races in the list the minus is within the usual margins of annual fluctuations and does not indicate a downward trend. For the Greater Manchester Marathon it can be argues it suffered from the Birmingham International Marathon which took place for the first time.

Table 3: Events with the highest losses among European Marathons in 2017