The Sydney Marathon Ballot for 2027 Is Now Open

The public ballot for the 2027 Sydney Marathon opened at 10 a.m. Sydney time on Tuesday, Sept. 29, and runners now have three weeks to put their names in for a place on the start line next August. In the United States, that works out to an opening at 8 p.m. ET on Monday and a close at 7 p.m. ET on Sunday, Oct. 18. The race is on Sunday, Aug. 29, 2027, and it will be Sydney’s third edition as one of the World Marathon Majors.

It costs nothing to apply, and runners pay only if their name is drawn, when the card on the application is billed on Nov. 3: A$280 ($197) for Australian entrants and A$330 ($232) for international entrants, according to the official ballot page. Every application goes into the same random draw, so timing makes no difference to anyone’s chances, and a runner who meets a queue on the registration site loses nothing by trying again later.

Key Dates for the 2027 Sydney Marathon Ballot

Record Demand for a Place in Sydney

In 2024, the year Sydney was confirmed as the seventh Major, 20,272 people finished the race, according to the World Marathon Majors. Its first edition as a Major in 2025 had 32,963 finishers, and the ballot for the 2026 race then drew more than 123,000 applications, a record for the event and 56 percent more than the year before, organizers said. There were a little over 40,000 starting places to go around, and 36,295 runners from more than 140 countries took part on Aug. 30.

Runners who miss out will hear on Nov. 3 about getting in through the race’s charity and travel programs instead, and charity is a well-used route in Sydney: runners at this year’s race raised A$15.2 million ($10.7 million), an Australian record for a running event. Faster amateurs had their own window earlier this month, when Sydney took applications from Sept. 14 to 18 for a High Performance Program that doubled to 1,200 guaranteed places for 2027.

The Course and This Year’s Winners

The course starts on Miller Street in North Sydney, takes runners over the Harbour Bridge, loops through Centennial Park and finishes at the Opera House, with a seven-hour time limit. Ethiopia’s Addisu Gobena won the men’s race there in 2:04:42 last month, taking 1:24 off the course record in a race where seven men finished under the old mark, World Athletics reported. Peres Jepchirchir of Kenya won the women’s race in 2:18:31, just nine seconds outside the course record.

Organizers will not discuss individual applications at any point between the ballot opening and the notifications going out, and there is no appeal against the draw. They have asked applicants to double-check the email address they give, to look in their junk mail on Nov. 3, and to wait until after Nov. 6 before chasing a missing email.