The Boston Marathon in numbers

Boston Marathon year-by-year:

1897

The Boston Marathon was first run in April 1897 making it the world’s oldest annual marathon.

The race was established to commemorate Patriots’ Day, a holiday that is marked on the third Monday of April each year in the US, with the course designed to copy the original marathon in Greece, a hilly point-to-point race.

1924

The Boston Athletic Association moved the event start from Ashland to Hopkinton and lengthened the course from 39.4km (24.5 miles) to 42.195km (26.36 miles) to conform to the IAAF standards, based on the 1908 Olympic marathon.

1967

Kathy Switzer who had registered as K.V. Switzer was issued an official number and completed the race. The race organisers tried to remove her from the race.

1972

In the 1972 edition, Boston Marathon became the first marathon to allow women to compete. Eight women finished the inaugural women’s race.

Nina Kuscsik was the first official winner in 1972, though Bobbi Gibb, who ran without an official number, was the first woman to complete the race in 1966.

1975

The Boston Marathon became the first race to include a wheelchair category.

1990

Since 1990 the Boston Marathon became ineligible for world records as the start and finish are too far apart and the race is downhill.

The runners move from one location to another and not a loop like Olympic marathon races.

The course elevation of the Boston Marathon also has runners dropping 140m over the 42km course (an average of 3.33m per km which contravenes the World Athletics requirement ‘of not exceeding an average of one metre per kilometre’.

2013

While the Boston Marathon was still in progress, two homemade bombs exploded near the finish line, killing three spectators and injuring over 200. The race was stopped and many of the competitors were unable to finish the race.

2020

The only year that the road race has been cancelled, which was due to the Covid-19 pandemic. A virtual race took place instead.

Fascinating figures

4

With four victories at the Boston Marathon, Kenya’s Catherine Ndereba, the Beijing 2008 Olympic Marathon silver medallist, has the highest number of wins in the elite women’s category.

10

Ernst van Dyk is the most successful athlete in the history of the Boston Marathon, winning the men’s wheelchair category 10 times.

15

The first ever Boston Marathon included only 15 men and was won by John McDermott in 2:55:10 over 39.4km (24.5 miles).

108

American runners have won the most races -108 times, while Kenyans have been the most successful foreign athletes winning the Boston Marathon 36 times.

30,000

The average number of runners who compete in the race annually. In 1996 Boston Marathon registered 38,708 entrants, which went down as a record for the world’s largest marathon at the time.

Fastest times

2:25:39

The only ratified men’s world record on the Boston course, set in 1947 by South Korean runner Suh Yun-bok.

2:42:24

Liane Winter’s winning time in 1975 was recorded as a women’s world record, though it remains disputed as she was running in a tail wind.

2:03:02

The fastest time for the Boston Marathon is held by Kenya’s Geoffrey Mutai, his winning time from 2011. It was the fastest time ever recorded in the men’s marathon then as it bettered Haile Gebrselassie’s 2:03.59 from 2008 in Berlin. But Mutai’s time was not recognised as a world record as he was assisted by a tailwind from the start to finish, on a course with a significant drop in elevation.

The Boston marathon times are usually listed as world’s best but not as world records because of the Marathon’s point-to-point format.