London Marathon Organizers Are Being Asked to Explain How the Two-Day Race Will Work

The borough that hosts the start of the London Marathon wants to know what a two-day race is going to do to it. Lord Duvall, who represents Greenwich and Lewisham on the London Assembly, has asked the organizers, through City Hall officials, how residents will be told what is happening on their own street, what is being done to keep essential journeys moving, and how care visits are supposed to reach the people who depend on them when the roads have been shut two mornings running. “This expansion for 2027 is an exciting opportunity, but it is important that we get the details right,” he said, in comments first reported by the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

On Saturday, April 24 and Sunday, April 25, 2027, the London Marathon will be run twice over the same course, with 100,000 people between the two fields. That is close to double the 59,830 finishers of the 2026 race, which was already the largest marathon ever staged and took the Guinness record off New York by just over 600 finishers. London Marathon Events counted a record 1,338,544 applicants for the 2027 ballot, 1,008,091 of them from inside the UK, up from 1,133,813 the year before. Results went out in July, and everyone who missed out has spent the summer working through the other ways in. Adding a day is one answer to a squeeze that is not unique to London.

Greenwich gets the worst of it. Roughly the first seven miles run through the borough, and the start areas have to be built long before anyone turns up to run them. In 2026 a stretch of Shooters Hill Road and Charlton Way closed at 4 a.m. so that work could begin, most of the other start-area roads went at 7 a.m., and the Greenwich sections only came back during the afternoon. Doing all of that on a Saturday and then again on a Sunday is what Charlton, Blackheath and Greenwich town centre are being asked to absorb.

The council’s position is that this is manageable, and worth having. It expects the roads to reopen each evening, the way they do for the single-day race, and says it is working with the organizers and the Greater London Authority on mitigation. Two races in one weekend, as it sees things, should bring more visitors into the borough and more money with them.

Businesses on those first few miles are less relaxed. Simi Ghent, who runs an Italian deli in Charlton Village, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that her week leans heavily on Saturday trade, and that on marathon day the crowds head up to Charlton House rather than into the village. “To have a marathon on both a Saturday and Sunday will see us lose a lot of trade,” she said. She has heard almost nothing about what support, if any, might be coming.

Hugh Brasher, the chief executive of London Marathon Events, said the organization is in continuing talks with every borough on the course about limiting the impact across both days, and that the point of starting those conversations this early is to find out, well before the weekend itself, which households need a carer to get through or a hospital appointment kept. The Mayor of London made a similar case in a written answer to assembly members in June, saying City Hall officers were already working with the organizers and the boroughs on how the weekend would be planned and explained, and listing staged closure plans and guaranteed access for emergency vehicles among the measures on the table.

None of it settles the timetable, which is the part the 100,000 runners care about too. Organizers have confirmed that the route will be identical on both days, and that the elite, championship and good-for-age fields will be split by sex, men on one day and women on the other, but not which way round. With the Mini London Marathon on Friday, April 23, the capital is looking at three consecutive days of racing. The split is due before the end of September.