Boston Won’t Take the Adjusted Times Edmonton Is Promising

Runners who beat their Boston Marathon qualifying standard at the Edmonton Marathon on Aug. 16 can still submit that time with an application for next year’s race, provided it is the one the official results already carry. The Boston Athletic Association has said it will not take a result a race has restated because its course came in long or short of 42.2K. Qualifier registration runs Sept. 14 to 18, closing at 5 p.m. ET, for the race on April 19, 2027.

The Edmonton race has promised something else. Race director Tom Keogh wrote, in a statement now on the event’s website, that organizers are “working directly with Athletics Canada and other relevant partners to determine how this year’s results can be recognized.” By the race’s own account, reported by CTV News Edmonton, an adjustment to the finish times is under way. The association’s own checking comes later, after registration week closes on Sept. 18, when it confirms times and ranks applicants. On the two positions as they stand, the only Edmonton time Boston will take is the version that adjustment would replace.

One Policy, Reported in Two Parts

The position reached the public in two installments, under headlines that read like opposites. CTV News Edmonton reported on Aug. 19 that a restated result would be turned down from any race whose course had not measured 42.2K, while a runner who beat the standard could still put the recorded time forward. The broadcaster also noted that the association does not comment directly on other events. A day later Chris Lotsbom, its director of race communications and media, put the condition on the record with The Canadian Press. “So long as the results and times are official and unadjusted, they could be used for the qualifying,” he said, a formulation that stops short of a ruling on Edmonton.

Both the marathon and the half-marathon ran 674.7 meters long, because a detour around construction at the Wellington Bridge added more distance than a compensating change at the west end turnaround took back. Organizers stood by the course at first, then conceded on Aug. 18 that the event “owns this error.” The half-marathon also doubled as the Canadian Half Marathon Championships.

What an Unadjusted Time Is Worth

Beating the published standard has not been enough in recent cycles. The association fills the field from the fastest applications down and then reports a cutoff, the margin under the standard the last accepted runner needed. For 2026 that margin was 4:34: of 33,249 qualified applications, 24,362 were accepted and 8,887 were turned away.

At the pace implied by each standard, 674.7 meters costs about 2:48 for men 18 to 34, 3:26 for women 40 to 44 and 5:07 for women 80 and over. Those are Marathon Handbook’s proportional estimates at even pace; they are not results, and no governing body recognizes them. The 4:34 cutoff applied to every age group alike. Against it, the extra distance ate roughly 61 percent of the margin for men 18 to 34, and more than all of it for women 70 and over and men 80 and over.

The distinction being drawn is about who does the adjusting. The association applies adjustments of its own for this registration, adding five minutes to marks from courses with a net drop of 1,500 feet (457.2 meters) to 2,999 feet and 10 minutes from 3,000 to 5,999 feet.

On the association’s stated position, an Edmonton qualifier has one time to submit. A time that clears the standard but not the cutoff is not finished either: roughly 1,000 qualifiers below the cutoff will be drawn at random for 2027, which changes the odds of entry. A runner who finished in 3:03:00 against the 3:05:00 standard for men 40 to 44 has an official time inside the standard and a scaled equivalent near 3:00:07, and on the 2026 cutoff the scaled time would have been accepted where the official one would not.

What Nobody Has Ruled On

The association’s published criteria require a qualifying course certified “to attest to the exact 26.2 mile distance,” and no one has said publicly how that applies to a certified course that was not run at its certified distance. Athletics Canada, which runs the sport nationally and sanctioned the championships Edmonton hosted, told The Canadian Press on Aug. 20 that its conversations with the race were continuing. Its most recent published item on the race, checked Aug. 21, is an Aug. 17 recap of the championships, filed the day before the concession.

The race’s results page, checked the same day, still directs participants to Sportstats with no notice of a correction, and no method has been published for the recognition it promised. Boston’s window closes at 5 p.m. ET on Sept. 18.