The 2025 TCS Sydney Marathon was a historic race for world marathons and a record-breaking day.
Taking place on Sunday 31 August, here’s all the headlines and everything you might have missed from the 2025 Sydney Marathon.
🥳 WELCOME TO THE MAJORS!
The Sydney Marathon is officially the seventh Abbott World Marathon Major!
Having been announced as one of three candidate races in 2022, Sydney successfully progressed through the three-year process to be announced as the seventh Major, joining Tokyo, Boston, London, Berlin, Chicago and New York.
🏅 32,959 FINISH THE 2025 SYDNEY MARATHON
There were 32,959 finishers in the 2025 Sydney Marathon! That makes it the largest marathon ever held in Australia, and means the race has more than doubled in finishers in the past two years.
🇳🇱 SIFAN HASSAN WINS THE WOMEN’S RACE
Sifan Hassan won the women’s race in a new course record of 2:18:22, taking more than three minutes off the previous record.
The Dutch athlete, who is the reigning Olympic marathon champion and winner of the London Marathon and Chicago Marathon (and the third-fastest woman of all time), was one of the big stars in the race as she won ahead of former world record holder Brigid Kosgei and last year’s Sydney Marathon winner Workenesh Edesa.
🥇 Sifan Hassan (NLD) 2:18:22 🥈 Brigid Kosgei (KEN) 2:18:56🥉 Workenesh Edesa (ETH) 2:22:15
🇪🇹 HAILEMARYAM KIROS WINS THE MEN’S RACE
Ethiopia’s Hailemaryam Kiros won the men’s race in a new course record of 2:06:06, taking 12 seconds of the previous best. It’s his first Marathon Major win.
Kiros and countryman Addisu Gobenu pulled ahead of the pack with around 6km to go, and fought through the final section of the race, with Gobena finishing just 10-seconds benhind. Lesotho’s Tebello Ramakongoana was third.
🥇 Hailemaryam Kiros (ETH) 2:06:06🥈 Addisu Gobena (ETH) 2:06:16🥉 Tebello Ramakongoana (LSO) 2:06:47
Tebello Ramakongoana is a name less familiar to us but he has a good recent running record finishing fourth in the 2023 World Championship Marathon and was seventh in the 2024 Paris Olympic Marathon.
🐐 KIPCHOGE FINISHES NINTH
Eliud Kipchoge was the headline star in the men’s race. The great Kenyan marathoner has won 11 World Marathon Majors, two Olympic Golds and has run the second-fastest marathon of all time (2:01:09).
He was cheered all the way around Sydney as he finished in 2:08:31 and ninth place, and was then embraced by his fellow runners. After the race he said to interviewers:
“I’m happy to go across the finish line. I have nothing to prove. My mission is to bring all the people together.” He also shared his thoughts on the race. “It’s a beautiful course. It’s a course whereby there is no other in this world.”
🦘 THE FASTEST MARATHONS EVER RUN IN AUSTRALIA
Both the men’s and women’s course records were broken in Sunday’s race, making those times the fastest marathons to ever be run in Australia.
7️⃣ SEVEN STAR HOPEFULS
There were 4,021 runners taking part in the Sydney Marathon who have already got a Six Star medal, and who hoped to claim their seventh star.
Of those runners, 1005 were from the U.S., 319 from Australia and 223 from the UK. And 11 of them celebrated their birthday on race day!
The average age of a Seven Star hopeful in Sydney was 54 years and 3 months.
⭐ SEVEN STAR ARM SLEEVES
While Sydney doesn’t count towards the Six Star medal, and as a new Nine Star medal isn’t coming for a couple of years, all runners who had already collected their Six Star medal were given blue Seven Star arm sleeves to wear. A lot of runners wore these during the race to commemorate the achievement and experience.
Images from Abbott WMM
🟦 BLUE LINE LEGENDS
The Blue Line Legends is a small club of runners who have completed every Sydney Marathon since the race was first run in 2001.
There are just six Blue Line Legends, including Jo Tebbutt, the only woman to have run every Sydney Marathon, plus Bob Fickel, Rick Patzold, Graeme Wye, Eric Schierer and Ray James.
🏄 GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS BROKEN AT THE 2025 SYDNEY MARATHON
As well as the course records, there were 13 Guinness World Records broken at the 2025 Sydney Marathon.
Bondi Rescue Lifeguard Andrew Reid who set the record for the fastest marathon carrying a surfboard: 03:17:37
Daniel Byrne set the record for the most pairs of underpants worn during a marathon, with 53 pairs
Emily and Isabella Chen set the record for fastest aggregate marathon time by a set of twins (female): 07:37:02
Here’s the full list of Guinness World Records broken at the 2025 Sydney Marathon.
📺 WATCH THE HIGHLIGHTS!
Here’s a short video of the race highlights from The Sydney Marathon
FAQ ON THE SYDNEY MARATHON
When does the Sydney Marathon ballot open for 2026?The ballot opens on Wednesday 24 September 2025. Enter via the Sydney Marathon website.
Is the Sydney Marathon difficult?We’ve ranked Sydney Marathon as the most challenging of the seven World Marathon Majors because it’s the race with the most overall elevation, plus for a lot of runners they’ll be travelling thousands of miles to take part in the race. But the Sydney Marathon is a big city road race and not a mountain race – sure there are constant hills, but if you’ve trained to run on hills then you’ll be fine. And the downhills are steeper than the uphills.
Will there be a Seven Star medal?No, there won’t. But there will eventually be a Nine Star medal which will be in addition to the Six Star medal. Every runner who completes the Sydney Marathon collects a star; it doesn’t count towards the original Six Star medal, but will count towards the Nine Star medal.
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Lead image from Sports Tours International
