With less than a week to go before Championship applications open, London Marathon Events has quietly made several late changes to its qualifying criteria, tightening some pathways while expanding others. The updates, which appeared on the official website without public announcement, affect how UK club runners can earn a Championship place at the 2026 TCS London Marathon.
The changes include a larger Championship field, now capped at 600 men and 600 women, up from 500 each, but also new restrictions on who can use a half marathon time to qualify.
From this year, only runners who have never completed a marathon will be able to use a half marathon performance for entry. Anyone who has previously finished a marathon must qualify using a full marathon result.
That detail, buried in the fine print, will likely catch out some runners who had planned to rely on a recent half marathon result.
Under the revised rules, half marathon times can no longer be converted into Good For Age (GFA) entries either, closing a backdoor that some club athletes have used in the past when missing the Championship cutoff.
The move effectively pushes repeat applicants toward the marathon-only qualification path.
Another quiet but important clarification is that UK residence is now required for anyone who hopes to fall back on a GFA place if their Championship application isn’t successful.
Non-resident UKA members can still apply for a Championship slot, but if they’re not selected, they won’t be eligible for a GFA spot. Championship entry only requires UK Athletics membership, but the fallback option is now limited to UK residents.
The Championship qualifying standards themselves remain unchanged at 2:38:00 for men and 3:10:00 for women over the marathon, with a half marathon standard of 1:11:30 for men and 1:26:00 for women, again only applicable to first-time marathoners.
All qualifying times must be run on courses certified by UKA, AIMS, or a recognised national governing body between October 1, 2024 and September 30, 2025. The application window opens on Thursday, October 2, 2025, and closes at 4:00 p.m. on Thursday, October 23. Places will be awarded on a fastest-first basis if more than 1,200 eligible athletes apply.
