How to Watch the 2026 Berlin Marathon From Anywhere in the World

The 52nd Berlin Marathon starts at 8:45 a.m. local time on Sunday, Sept. 27, and where you can watch it depends a great deal on which country you happen to be in. RTL has it free to air in Germany. FloTrack has it behind a subscription in the United States. The organizers stream it themselves on YouTube, in German, and only once the television window has closed.

It is most definitely going to be worth the early alarm wherever you are. The course records here are Eliud Kipchoge’s 2:01:09 from 2022 and Tigst Assefa’s 2:11:53 from 2023, and both were world records on the day they were run. Assefa is back on Sunday to try for another one. Well over 56,000 athletes from more than 160 nations are entered across the weekend.

The Start Times, Converted

The handbikers go first, at 8:20 a.m., then the elite wheelchair athletes at 8:26 a.m. and the rest of the handbike and wheelchair field at 8:29 a.m. Runners follow in six waves from 8:45 a.m., the first of them carrying the elite men, the elite women and blocks A, B and C. Block K, at the back, leaves at 10:27 a.m., an hour and 42 minutes after the winners have set off.

	Berlin	London	New York	Los Angeles	Sydney
Elite wheelchair start	8:26 a.m.	7:26 a.m.	2:26 a.m.	11:26 p.m. Sat.	4:26 p.m.
Broadcast on air	8:30 a.m.	7:30 a.m.	2:30 a.m.	11:30 p.m. Sat.	4:30 p.m.
Marathon start, wave one	8:45 a.m.	7:45 a.m.	2:45 a.m.	11:45 p.m. Sat.	4:45 p.m.
Final wave, block K	10:27 a.m.	9:27 a.m.	4:27 a.m.	1:27 a.m.	6:27 p.m.
Finish line closes	5 p.m.	4 p.m.	11 a.m.	8 a.m.	1 a.m. Mon.

Berlin runs on CEST, two hours ahead of UTC, so the 8:45 a.m. gun is 3:45 p.m. in Tokyo, 12:15 p.m. in Delhi and 9:45 a.m. in Nairobi. New Zealand puts its clocks forward that same morning, which lands the start at 7:45 p.m. on Sunday evening in Auckland.

Anyone tracking a friend rather than the elites needs the other end of the day too. The limit is 6:15:00 from crossing the start line, there is an intermediate cutoff at 33K (20.5 miles) at 3:40 p.m., and the finish line shuts at 5 p.m. Because those are clock times rather than elapsed times, they bite hardest on the runners who started last.

Where the Race Is On

In Germany, RTL shows the race free to air from 8:30 a.m. until about 12:15 p.m., with the same coverage on RTL+ for anyone watching on a phone. The broadcaster holds the German television rights from 2024 through 2026. Before that deal the marathon had been off RTL for 14 years.

American viewers need FloTrack, which charges for a subscription and goes on air at 2:30 a.m. Eastern, the same minute RTL starts in Germany. FloSports now holds the United States rights to a good share of the autumn calendar, Sydney and UTMB among them.

Everywhere else is harder to pin down, and the reason sits with the agency rather than the race. Infront, the Swiss company that sells the marathon’s media rights, produces the host feed in HD with an English commentary track and delivers it to broadcasters by satellite or over the internet on request. An English-language broadcast does exist, then. Whether it reaches a screen near you comes down to whether a network in your country bought it, and no list of this year’s territory partners has been published anywhere.

The official stream is the gap in all this. Once RTL comes off air at 12:15 p.m., the race says its own YouTube channel picks the coverage up and carries it to the end of the day, and that the commentary there will be in German “for legal reasons.” Those legal reasons are the territory deals, which points to the stream being fenced off to German-speaking Europe, as it was in 2025. Marathon Handbook could not confirm it either way this week, so readers outside Germany, Austria and Switzerland should open the channel before the start and see what happens. What is certain is that the YouTube coverage begins three and a half hours after the gun, by which time both winners will have finished, showered and spoken to the press.

Marathon Handbook Is in Berlin

Marathon Handbook’s live blog and watch along open about 30 minutes before the start, so from roughly 8:15 a.m. in Berlin and 2:15 a.m. Eastern, and run through both elite finishes. Senior news editor Jessy Carveth is in Berlin covering the race in person and filing from the course and the finish area, so the blog carries reporting from the ground alongside whatever the broadcast is showing.

When the Leaders Are Due Back

The 8:45 a.m. gun makes the rest of the morning easy to plan. Sabastian Sawe won here last year in 2:02:16, which off this year’s start would bring the men’s winner through the Brandenburg Gate at about 10:47 a.m., or 4:47 a.m. Eastern. Rosemary Wanjiru’s winning 2:21:05 works out at about 11:06 a.m. A quicker women’s race, which is very much the plan this year, pulls that back toward 11 a.m.

One detail for the completists: the elite wheelchair race sets off at 8:26 a.m., four minutes before RTL goes on air, so the first start of the morning is not televised at all.

Following One Runner

If you are awake at 2 a.m. for one person in block H rather than for the race at the front, the official marathon app will serve you better than any broadcast can. It follows as many as 25 entrants at once, runners or inline skaters, and posts split times, standings and push notifications through the weekend. It also maps the official cheering points, which is the useful bit if you are in the city rather than at home.

Who Is Racing

Assefa is back on the course where she set that 2:11:53, and she is chasing the world record again. The men’s race lost its headline act on Aug. 27, when Sabastian Sawe withdrew with a stress fracture in his shin, which leaves Gabriel Geay and Guye Adola at the front of the elite field on 2:03:00 and 2:03:46. Kenenisa Bekele runs it at 44, on the course where he finished two seconds outside the world record in 2019.

The wheelchair races are every bit as deep. Marcel Hug has won in Berlin 10 times, Catherine Debrunner defends her title as the world No. 1 and owns the women’s course record of 1:34:16, and Manuela Schär and Jetze Plat are both entered. The men’s mark has stood almost 30 years: Heinz Frei’s 1:21:39, set in 1997. Saturday belongs to the inline skaters, where Bart Swings goes for a 10th win as course record holder.

Assefa’s attempt is the one to set an alarm for. On last year’s timings it gets decided somewhere in the final 5K, at around 10:50 a.m. in Berlin, which is 4:50 a.m. on the east coast and 1:50 a.m. in California.