Sydney Marathon Runners Set an Australian Charity Fundraising Record

Runners at the Sydney Marathon raised A$15.2 million ($10.8 million) for charity on Aug. 30, more than any Australian running event has ever collected in a single day and nearly twice what the same race managed last year.

The money came in small pieces, more than 100,000 separate donations working out at something like $150 each, spread over 545 charities and collected by 9,810 individual fundraisers and 83 teams. Organizers put the final figure out on Wednesday, six days before entries open for 2027.

Four years ago the same program raised $900,000. That was 2022, the year Sydney began campaigning for a place in the World Marathon Majors, and this year’s total is close to 17 times it. Last year’s A$8.8 million ($6.3 million) was a record as well and lasted exactly one edition, and across its history the marathon has now sent A$52.7 million ($37.5 million) to Australian charities.

“Since the Abbott World Marathon Candidacy began in 2022 we’ve watched our charity program grow beyond anything we imagined, from $900,000 raised to over $15 million in 2026,” said Melinda Graetz, chief executive of Grassrootz, the platform that handles the event’s fundraising and has signed a 10-year deal to keep doing it.

London’s runners raised £87.5 million ($117 million) in April, which London Marathon Events holds as the world record for a single day of fundraising, and Boston’s official charity program brought in $57.3 million across 193 nonprofits. Sydney is not in that company yet, and it has only been a major for two years.

Running for Premature Babies, the headline charity partner, was the biggest single beneficiary with close to A$1.1 million ($780,000), in the year it turned 20. The largest individual total belonged to Orly Lavee, who brought in A$50,150 ($35,700) for the Australasian Leukaemia and Lymphoma Group, which is a lot of asking. We Run, in only its second year as the event’s foundation partner, cleared A$700,000 ($498,000) for programs that go after the people who would never otherwise find their way into the sport.

A Record Field and Three Course Records

A record 36,296 runners finished, from more than 140 countries, and the ballot for those places drew more than 123,000 applications, up from roughly 79,000 the year before. Another 400,000 people came out to watch along the road between North Sydney and the Opera House, which organizers also logged as a record.

Addisu Gobena took 1:24 off the men’s course record with 2:04:42, the fastest marathon any man has run in Australia, and Daniel Romanchuk won the men’s wheelchair race in 1:26:50. Manuela Schär went 2:48 quicker than the old women’s wheelchair mark with 1:42:04. The only record to survive the day was Sifan Hassan’s, and Peres Jepchirchir finished just nine seconds outside it in 2:18:31.

Schär’s win came with a counting problem attached. It gave her victories on all eight courses that make up the majors, which no athlete in any classification had managed before, and whether that holds depends on Cape Town, where she won in May. World Marathon Majors has since confirmed Cape Town as the eighth member of the series, although the South African race does not actually run as a major until May 2027, which is why the International Paralympic Committee called Sydney her seventh. Sydney had settled the argument for itself back in August, when the finisher medal turned up with eight majors on it.

“More people on the start line and more people on the streets than we have ever seen, and the largest charity total within a single day of running in Australia,” race director Wayne Larden said. “Every one of those is the result of years of work by a lot of people, and we’re not finished yet.”

Cleaning up after a field that size took 57 volunteers jogging along behind the runners picking up litter, nearly twice as many as the year before, and between them they collected 647 lb. (293.5 kg) of gel wrappers.

How to Enter the 2027 Sydney Marathon

The general ballot opens at 10 a.m. Tuesday in Sydney and closes at 10 a.m. on Oct. 19, and everyone finds out on Nov. 3. It costs A$280 ($199) if you live in Australia and A$330 ($235) if you do not, and if the draw goes against you the ways left in are a charity place or a travel package.

The 2027 race is on Aug. 29.