BY THE NUMBERS: GLOBAL ROAD RUNNING FINISHERS UP 17% IN 2024
By David Monti, @d9monti
(c) 2025 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved, used with permission.
NEW YORK (13-Jan) — A detailed survey of 2024 finisher data from 600 well-established road races in 44 countries by Race Results Weekly revealed a total year-over-year increase in finishers of 17.1%. The survey, which encompassed 4,668,261 race finishers competing at distances from 5 km to 86 km, showed strong growth despite bad weather in regions of the United States on Thanksgiving Day which depressed turnout on the biggest day of the year for American road running.
Growth was particularly strong at the half-marathon distance. The survey included 190 half-marathons with a total of 1,513,531 finishers, and year-over-year finishers climbed an impressive 20.9%. The biggest increase was reported by the Göteborgsvarvet in Gothenburg, Sweden, which recorded 40,638 finishers, up 34.6% (10,452 runners) from the prior year. The increase in half-marathon finishers was broad-based: 129 races (68%) showed double-digit growth year-over-year, and only 17 half-marathons showed a decline in finishers.
The growth in marathon finishers was also strong. Based on 135 races surveyed covering 1,144,630 finishers the year-over-year increase was 14.6%. The five largest marathons in the world –New York, Paris, Berlin, London and Chicago– had an aggregate increase of 27,531 finishers (11.4%) for a total of 269,817 runners. Among the 11 marathons which recorded at least 20,000 finishers, Sydney showed the largest increase: 52.9% or 7,012 finishers.
At the short end of the racing spectrum, the survey showed a 13.7% increase in 5-K finishers based on a total of 236,181 athletes competing in 48 races. The largest 5-K in the survey, the ASICS Österreichischer Frauenlauf 5-K in Vienna, recorded 15,447 finishers (mostly women) and year-over-year growth of 19.1%. Many of the 5-K races in the survey were part of larger race festivals.
The largest race in the survey, the Sun-Herald City to Surf 14-K in Sydney, recorded 77,436 finishers. The median number of finishers in the survey was 4927, but the average was a much higher 7780 reflecting the impact of 16 mega-races which had at least 30,000 finishers. Individual races within multi-race festivals were counted separately.
The year-over-year finisher increase would have been greater, but cold and rainy weather in the eastern and northeastern United States on Thanksgiving Day depressed race turnout. Of the 32 Thanksgiving Day races included in the survey covering 149,743 finishers, 11 races showed a year-over-year decline in finishers. As a result, total Thanksgiving Day participation only increased 2.8%.
While the survey incorporated finisher data from nearly four dozen countries, data from Chinese road races were not included. Chinese events do not publish full finisher lists so there is no independent way to determine the number of finishers.
It’s important to remember that finishers are the most conservative measure of race participation. Race entries, which drive race revenue, are much higher and are the metric most race organizers use to determine effectiveness of their marketing programs and the size of their events. The decline from entries to finishers can be 20% or more, depending on the event.
A full list of the events included in the survey is here, https://tinyurl.com/22hyzc5y, listed by in descending order by finishers.
NOTE: Most of the finisher data were taken on race day or the following day, so some small changes in finisher totals may have taken place later and are not reflected in the numbers –Ed.
