If you’ve been quietly eyeing that Abbott Six Star Medal and thinking “that’s probably enough,” we have news for you.
The Shanghai Marathon has passed the first stage of its evaluation to join the Abbott World Marathon Majors — and if it clears one final assessment at its December 6, 2026 race, it becomes the series’ eighth (or maybe ninth…) member in 2027.
AbbottWMM confirmed this week that Shanghai met all required criteria when evaluators attended the November 2025 race. The race now has one year to do it again.
“We have seen a fantastic level of commitment from the Shanghai team throughout their candidacy,” said AbbottWMM CEO Dawna Stone. “Their hard work has put them firmly on the pathway to success and our evaluation team was very impressed with the event they witnessed in November.”
What runners actually need to know
Shanghai isn’t a Major yet — so hold off on booking flights. But the dominoes are in motion, and the implications are worth paying attention to.
If Shanghai completes its candidacy successfully in 2026, and the Sanlam Cape Town Marathon does the same, the series expands to nine races. That comes with something new: a Nine Star finisher medal. For the obsessive among us — and there are many — that’s a whole new rabbit hole.
Cape Town’s path has been bumpier. Its October 2025 race was cancelled due to adverse weather, but the event is back on the calendar for May 2026. Both races would need to pass their final assessments to launch a nine-race series together in 2027. So there are still a few moving parts.
How Shanghai got here
The Shanghai Marathon has been around since 1996 — 27 editions and counting. In 2020 it became the first race in China to earn Platinum Label status from World Athletics, which is essentially the sport’s way of saying “yes, this one is serious.” That credibility paved the way for its entry into the AbbottWMM candidacy in 2024, where it replaced the Chengdu Marathon as China’s representative in the process.
China is not a market anyone in running is ignoring right now. Marathons there are massively oversubscribed, participation numbers are climbing, and Shanghai — as a city — clearly has ambitions to match.
Xu Bin, Director General of the Shanghai Administration of Sports, put it plainly: “We will spare no effort in supporting the race to reach even higher standards, and we look forward to officially joining the Abbott WMM family in the near future.”
Zheng Yuanhu, Chairman of Donghao Lansheng Group — the organizing company behind the race — was equally bullish. “Shanghai Marathon has consistently pursued excellence and refinement, always surpassing its own limits. We will spare no effort in our pursuit of excellence.”
That’s a lot of “spare no effort,” which suggests they are, in fact, sparing no effort.
The bigger picture
Hans-Peter Zurbruegg, Senior VP at Infront — the sports agency supporting Shanghai’s candidacy — pointed to something most runners already feel when they look at the global race calendar: Asia is where the energy is right now.
“The momentum in Asia — especially in China — is remarkable,” he said. “We believe the event has everything it needs to become one of the most internationally recognized marathons in the future.”
Shanghai joins the TCS Sydney Marathon and Sanlam Cape Town Marathon as candidate races brought into the process through Infront’s partnership with AbbottWMM. Sydney officially joined the Majors in 2025, becoming the seventh member of the series — and runners have already been racing to tick it off.
For now, December 6, 2026 is the date circled in red. One more strong race, and the World Marathon Majors gets its first Asian member outside Japan — and runners get a fresh reason to start saving.
