The TCS New York City Marathon has become the first marathon in history to send more than 60,000 runners across the finish line. Preliminary figures released by New York Road Runners the day after the race on 1 November put the 2026 finisher count at 61,146, from 61,529 starters, meaning only 383 entrants did not complete the course. The total is 1,920 higher than the 59,226 who finished in 2025 and edges past the 59,830 recorded at the London Marathon in April, a figure Guinness World Records recognised as the largest marathon ever run.
The growth has been steady rather than sudden. London recorded 56,640 finishers in April 2025 and New York 55,646 in 2024, so the sport’s two biggest mass-participation marathons have each added several thousand finishers in the space of two years. Demand continues to run well ahead of supply: New York reported a record of roughly 240,000 applications for places in the 2026 race, a reminder that the ballot, rather than appetite, is the limiting factor on field size.
The gender split continues to move toward parity. Women accounted for 28,942 finishers, up from 27,156 in 2025, an increase of 1,786, while men numbered 32,047, a rise of only 120. Women now make up about 47 per cent of the field, up from 46 per cent a year earlier. A further 157 non-binary runners finished, compared with 143 in 2025. The oldest finishers were 90-year-old Danil Farkash and 84-year-old Sharon Kerson.
The international picture was less uniform. A total of 15,745 finishers came from outside the United States, down from 18,660 in 2025, even though 153 countries were represented against 132 the year before. Italy sent the largest overseas contingent, followed by France. Because the overall total rose while the overseas figure fell, the increase appears to have come almost entirely from American runners, with a difference of roughly 4,800 on last year on the reported numbers.
The figures are preliminary and may change once results are fully verified. They arrive in a week when the race’s elite story, Andreas Almgren’s debut victory in 2:06:01 and Sheila Chepkirui’s narrow win in the women’s race, has already been widely covered. For organisers and city authorities, the harder question is how much further a single point-to-point course through five boroughs can stretch before logistics, start-line management and medical coverage become the constraint rather than the entry list.