Everything You Need to Know About the 2026 Sydney Marathon

The Sydney Marathon starts at 6:30 a.m. on Sunday, Aug. 30, on Miller Street in North Sydney. By then the Sydney Harbour Bridge, which the runners cross in the opening miles, will have been shut to traffic for three and a half hours.

This is the second running of the race as a World Marathon Major. The ballot took 123,000 applications, 56 percent more than last year, for a field the organizers put at more than 40,000. Four years ago about 5,000 people entered.

The Essentials

Date	Sunday, Aug. 30, 2026
Elite wheelchair start	6:15 a.m. AEST
Mass start	6:30 a.m. AEST
Start	Miller Street, North Sydney
Finish	Sydney Opera House
Distance	26.2 miles (42.195K)
Cutoff	7 hours
Event window closes	3:40 p.m., recovery village 4 p.m.
Field (organizers’ target)	More than 40,000 runners from more than 140 countries

How to Watch

In Australia, SBS carries the race free to air from 6 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. AEST, and SBS On Demand streams it from 6 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., running on for three hours after the television broadcast ends. A full replay follows on demand. Both are free.

In the United States, the race is on FloTrack, which requires a subscription. The FloSports apps run on Roku, Fire TV, Google TV, Apple TV, Samsung, VIZIO and LG devices, and the coverage is archived for subscribers afterward.

Readers outside Australia watch this one a day early. Sydney is on AEST, 10 hours ahead of UTC, and Australia does not observe daylight saving in August, so the 6 a.m. broadcast start is 4 p.m. Eastern and 1 p.m. Pacific on Saturday, Aug. 29, and 9 p.m. in the United Kingdom that evening. The mass field sets off at 4:30 p.m. Eastern. FloTrack lists the event on its own schedule as starting at 8 p.m. UTC on Aug. 29. The On Demand stream runs until 11:30 p.m. Eastern on Saturday night.

Live tracking, results and event alerts run through the official race app. The road closures, spectator zones, transport and entertainment sit on a separate Smart Map, which the organizers host inside a third party app called TRACX.

The Course

The course starts in North Sydney and finishes at the Opera House, with a loop through the eastern suburbs in the middle. Transport for NSW lists the suburbs it runs through as North Sydney, the central business district, Pyrmont, Moore Park and Kingsford.

The organizers’ spectator map gives the order on the road: Barangaroo at 10K, The Rocks at 11.9K, the top of Macquarie Street at 14K, Taylor Square in Darlinghurst at 15.4K, Driver Avenue in Moore Park at 29K, Centennial Park at 33.3K, Driver Avenue again at 34.8K, Taylor Square again at 36.2K, Mrs Macquarie’s Chair in the Royal Botanic Garden at 39.2K and Macquarie Street again at 40.8K. Three stretches are run twice.

The organizers publish the profile in metric: 313 meters of climbing against a net drop of 83 m, which converts to 1,027 feet and 272 ft. That is a lot of vertical for a Major, and it has not slowed anyone down. Hailemaryam Kiros won here last year in 2:06:06 and Sifan Hassan won the women’s race in 2:18:22. No man or woman has run quicker anywhere in the country.

The Rest of the Weekend

The Sydney Mini Marathon runs on Saturday, Aug. 29, over 5K from Macquarie Street around the Royal Botanic Garden and The Domain to the same Opera House finish. Assembly is 6:15 a.m. and the start is 7:15 a.m.

The expo is at Sydney Showground in Sydney Olympic Park, the site of the 2000 Olympic Games, west of the city center. It runs Thursday, Aug. 27, from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., Friday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Saturday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Bib collection happens there and nowhere else. Nothing is mailed out, and there is no pickup on race morning, so 40,000 runners have a hard deadline of 4 p.m. Saturday. Photo identification and the QR code from the confirmation email are required.

Motion, which the organizers describe as a multi-day celebration across the race weekend, runs Thursday to Sunday at Customs House by Circular Quay.

The Men’s Race

Alphonce Simbu of Tanzania arrives as the reigning world champion. His personal best of 2:02:47 came finishing second at Boston in April, on a course World Athletics does not accept for records, and his quickest record-eligible time is 2:04:38. He was also second at Boston in 2025. Sisay Lemma of Ethiopia is the fastest man entered at 2:01:48 and has won both Boston and London. Behind them come Timothy Kiplagat of Kenya at 2:02:55, Vincent Ngetich at 2:03:13, Dawit Wolde at 2:03:48 and Leul Gebresilase at 2:04:02. The whole 2025 podium is back: Hailemaryam Kiros to defend the title and the course record he set winning it, Addisu Gobena, who was second in 2:06:16, and Tebello Ramakongoana of Lesotho, who was third.

The entry that makes the race hard to call belongs to Hagos Gebrhiwet. The Ethiopian is the second-fastest 5,000m runner in history and has run 57:41 for the half-marathon. Sunday is his first marathon, which is also why he is absent from the list below. That list records marathon bests and he does not have one.

The organizers’ published athlete list carries 30 men who do. Fourteen of them are inside 2:05:00, 18 have run quicker than the course record, and seven are Australian, led by Andy Buchanan on his Sydney debut. Elite entries change up to race morning, and both tables below follow that list as it stands.

Announcing the field, the race director, Wayne Larden, said: “For the first time in the event’s history, both reigning World Champions will toe the same start line, on the same day, in the same city.”

The Elite Men’s Field

Athlete	Country	Marathon PB
Sisay Lemma	ETH	2:01:48
Alphonce Simbu	TAN	2:02:47
Timothy Kiplagat	KEN	2:02:55
Vincent Ngetich	KEN	2:03:13
Dawit Wolde	ETH	2:03:48
Leul Gebresilase	ETH	2:04:02
Tebello Ramakongoana	LES	2:04:18
Seifu Tura	ETH	2:04:29
Gilbert Kibet	KEN	2:04:31
Hailemaryam Kiros	ETH	2:04:35
Chimdessa Debele	ETH	2:04:44
Enock Kinyamal	KEN	2:04:46
Chalu Deso	ETH	2:04:53
Kennedy Kimutai	KEN	2:04:56
Addisu Gobena	ETH	2:05:01
Chala Regassa	ETH	2:05:06
Ibrahim Hassan	DJI	2:05:20
Jemal Yimer	ETH	2:05:48
Andy Buchanan	AUS	2:06:22
Melaku Belachew	ETH	2:06:30
Ethan Shuley	USA	2:07:14
Kosei Shiraishi	JPN	2:08:42
Tim Vincent	AUS	2:09:40
Liam Boudin	AUS	2:10:28
Tom Do Canto	AUS	2:11:14
Yudai Fukuda	JPN	2:11:16
Yoshihiro Maeda	JPN	2:11:56
James Nipperess	AUS	2:15:03
Fraser Darcy	AUS	2:17:24
Michael Roeger	AUS	2:18:53

The Women’s Race

Peres Jepchirchir of Kenya is the reigning world champion, having won the title in Tokyo last September, and she won the Olympic marathon in Tokyo in 2021. Her best is 2:14:43 and she has won Boston, London and New York. She is more than three minutes quicker than anyone else in the field. Irine Cheptai, also Kenyan, is next at 2:17:51, then Magdalena Shauri of Tanzania at 2:18:03, Stella Chesang of Uganda at 2:18:26, Vivian Cheruiyot at 2:18:31 and Shure Demise of Ethiopia at 2:18:34. Chesang won Osaka this year and Haven Hailu won Seoul in 2:19:09.

Twenty-two women are on the list, three of them inside the course record and 10 inside 2:20:00. Three are Australian, led by Ellie Pashley.

The mark they are chasing is Hassan’s 2:18:22 from last year, which took more than three minutes off a course record of 2:21:40 and which Brigid Kosgei pushed her to, finishing 34 seconds back in 2:18:56.

Hassan is not returning. She withdrew in March from April’s London Marathon with an Achilles injury and has since been named in the professional field for New York on Nov. 1, which will be her first race of the year.

The Elite Women’s Field

Athlete	Country	Marathon PB
Peres Jepchirchir	KEN	2:14:43
Irine Cheptai	KEN	2:17:51
Magdalena Shauri	TAN	2:18:03
Stella Chesang	UGA	2:18:26
Vivian Cheruiyot	KEN	2:18:31
Shure Demise	ETH	2:18:34
Haven Hailu	ETH	2:19:09
Sharon Chelimo	KEN	2:19:33
Joyce Tele	KEN	2:19:50
Meseret Abebayehu	ETH	2:19:50
Aberu Ayana	ETH	2:20:20
Waganesh Mekasha	ETH	2:20:26
Azmera Gebru	ETH	2:20:48
Jackline Cherono	KEN	2:21:14
Fikrte Wereta	ETH	2:21:32
Biruktayit Degefa	USA	2:21:34
Kaoutar Farkoussi	MOR	2:25:12
Priscah Cherono	KEN	2:25:17
Mizuki Nishimura	JPN	2:25:54
Ellie Pashley	AUS	2:26:21
Milly Clark	AUS	2:26:59
Caitlin Scott	AUS	2:30:26

The Australian Championship Inside the Race

The Australian marathon championship is decided in the same start. Entry is free but limited to runners already in the marathon who are registered with a state athletics association, and the standards are 2:30:00 for men and 2:50:00 for women on marks since Jan. 1, 2024, or 68:30 and 77:30 in the half-marathon for debutants since Jan. 1, 2025. Medals go to the open category and to five masters brackets, from 40-44 up to 60 and over.

Both national records have changed hands since the last Sydney Marathon. Haftu Strintzos, who won the Australian title here last year in 2:11:27, ran 2:06:20 at the Gold Coast Marathon on July 5 and took Buchanan’s record by two seconds. Jessica Stenson ran 2:21:25 in Valencia in December and took Sinead Diver’s by nine. Buchanan, who held the men’s record for 19 months and lost it seven weeks ago, is on the Sydney start list. Leanne Pompeani won the women’s national title here last year in 2:24:47.

How Sydney Became a Major

The race dates to 2001, set up in the year after the Sydney Olympics, and the World Marathon Majors lists it as the only participation event those Games left behind. For two decades it was a domestic marathon of a few thousand runners.

In 2022 it entered the series’ candidate program, competing for three available places against Cape Town and Chengdu, and started a multi-year evaluation against criteria covering elite recruitment, operations, safety and the experience of ordinary runners. The New South Wales government put the field at roughly 5,000 entrants that year. By 2024 it was 25,000.

The decision came on Nov. 4, 2024, Sydney time. The chief executive of the series, Dawna Stone, said the Sydney team “has been working towards this day, every day, for more than three years, and to see the improvement in their operations and event experience to the point where we can now call them a Major has been deeply impressive.”

Sydney ran its first race in the series on Aug. 31, 2025, having moved from the middle of September to the end of August, and both course records fell that morning. Kiros took 12 seconds off the men’s mark, and Hassan took the women’s off Workenesh Edesa, who finished third behind her. Cape Town has since been confirmed as the eighth Major, with its first race in the series in May 2027.

The City on Sunday

Road closures across the city run from 2 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The Harbour Bridge, the Cahill Expressway and the Western Distributor close at 3 a.m. and reopen at 11 a.m. Macquarie Street is shut until 4:30 p.m., Oxford Street until 4 p.m. and Anzac Parade until 2 p.m. The Cross City Tunnel is toll free from 5 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Inside that window the organizers flag a critical course lock-down from 5:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. across the central business district, The Rocks, Walsh Bay, Dawes Point, Millers Point, Barangaroo, Darling Harbour and Pyrmont.

Public transport is free on Saturday and Sunday for anyone carrying a race bib, on trains, metro, buses, light rail and ferries. Extra services start running from about 3:30 a.m. Transport for NSW directs the Purple and Orange starting groups to Victoria Cross or North Sydney stations and the Green group to Crows Nest.

The disruption scales with the race. Sydney had 32,963 finishers from 117 countries in 2025. The organizers are targeting more than 40,000 from more than 140 this year, and the ballot drew roughly three applications for every place, with the growth coming from outside Australia.

The seven-hour cutoff expires in the middle of the afternoon, with the last finishers on the course as the roads reopen behind them and the recovery village closing at 4 p.m. Eliud Kipchoge, ninth here last year in 2:08:31, is not entered. He runs the Melbourne Marathon on Oct. 11.