Editor’s note: Sydney’s finisher numbers have surged since it joined the majors. Tara Meakins, head of the Coogee Run Club, finds the deeper change lies elsewhere.

Three years ago, Jasmine Al-Zoubi from Western Sydney spent long stretches of her first TCS Sydney Marathon running alone.

“There were sections in that 2023 event where it was only myself and maybe one other runner on course,” she recalls. “There was not a spectator in sight.”

The kilometres ticked by in relative silence. No roaring crowds. No walls of noise. No sense that the city wrapped around the race. But by 2025, everything had shifted. Jasmine, who had launched the Sydney Muslim Run Club just months earlier, found herself surrounded by friendly faces on nearly every patch of the course. A course she now stood on as a Sydney Marathon community ambassador.

“Almost every single corner was filled with runners and supporters,” she says. “The whole experience felt a lot more elevated, and you definitely felt like you were part of a huge community, rather than just an individual person going on a run.”

The streets were packed. The atmosphere was electric. Sydney itself had now joined the race. That transformation tells the story of the Sydney Marathon’s first year as an Abbott World Marathon Major better than any statistic can. But the numbers are still mindblowing.

In 2022, fewer than 5,000 runners finished the race in its first candidacy year to become a major. By 2025, that number had grown to 33,800 as Sydney debuted as the seventh star. For this year’s event, more than 124,000 people applied for the ballot of 40,000 starting bibs. International participation has surged. Elite fields have deepened. Global attention has followed.

“The growth is fantastic,” says race director Wayne Larden. “It could be the fastest growing marathon in the world.”

But the biggest measure of success has been the communities that have formed around the race. It’s the runners who now see themselves reflected on the start line. It’s the spectators who line the streets in numbers that didn’t exist before. 

A year after Sydney joined the World Marathon Majors, the real story is clear. The race didn’t just get bigger. It changed what it is.

MORE THAN A RACE

For Wayne, becoming a World Marathon Major was never simply about scale. “We wanted Sydney to become one of the world’s great marathon cities,” he says. That ambition has pushed the race further into the global conversation.

Since the Sydney Marathon’s inception in 2000 as a test event for the Sydney Olympic Games, the city has carried a deep connection to marathon running on the world stage. More than two decades later, that historical legacy has been built into a presence in a new global era of the sport. 

Inside Running podcast co-host Brady Threlfall says that recognition is now immediate when he travels overseas. While he was in Boston for the marathon earlier this year, he found himself having the same conversations on repeat.

“The number of people who wanted to talk to me about the Sydney Marathon, because they knew I was an Australian runner, was incredible,” he says. “It’s how it’s viewed outside of Australia now.”

Sydney is now a destination race and part of the global marathon conversation. And while that shift has brought international attention, its most significant impact is still felt locally. 

“The marathon is completely bigger than a race,” says Nick Youngquest, director of the We Run Foundation, the marathon’s community impact organisation and official charity partner. “It builds collective efficacy within communities, social cohesion through connecting around the commonality of running, and the opportunity to break down barriers within society.”

Perhaps that is the biggest change of all: the race is about bringing people to the start line, and bringing them together. 

A DIFFERENT KIND OF RACE ATMOSPHERE

Even before race day of Sydney’s World Marathon Major debut, there was a noticeable change in the city. “Last year Sydney felt like it did during the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games,” says Wayne. “There was a buzz around the city. People were talking about it. People wanted to be part of it.”

For elite athlete Leanne Pompeani, who finished seventh in the women’s elite race and as the first Australian woman in 2025, the experience inside that atmosphere was unmistakable.

“In the days leading up to the race, Sydney was buzzing with nervousness and excitement,” she says. 

And it didn’t stop there. “Sometimes you finish a race and from the next day onwards a lot of it’s a blur,” the 30-year-old explains. “But there are certain moments that just got etched in my memory.

“Things like the Harbour Bridge – which is pretty rare to be able to run across – and I vividly remember the finish line because it was so spectacular and so emotional, especially because at that point I knew I was coming in as the first Australian woman, so I was the first one to feel Sydney’s World Marathon Major atmosphere.” 

She adds: “That finish line was a moment that I wish I could do again and again.”

A MORE OPEN START LINE

For Nick from the We Run Foundation, the impact of major status has been most visible in who now feels able to take part. “I would quite like to play soccer at Emirates Stadium when Arsenal is playing,” he says, “but that isn’t a reality for the majority. But hard work, dedication and community support can get everyday people to the start line of a marathon and participate with the best-of-the-best on the same day. It is quite unique in that way.”

That accessibility has helped reshape who sees themselves as part of Sydney’s running community. “For the longest time, there was an image of what a runner looked like,” says Jasmine, a Muslim hijabi, “and to be completely frank with you, it wasn’t somebody who looked like me.” Today, that image is very different.

“Now you’re seeing somebody who does look like me on the TCS Sydney Marathon’s Instagram page, and you’re seeing somebody like me running a marathon. And hopefully you think, ‘If she can do it, I can do it too’.”

For Jasmine, that’s one of the most meaningful changes she has witnessed since Sydney’s rise. “Representation matters,” she says. “And when people see someone who looks like them on the start line, it changes what feels possible.”

She believes becoming a World Marathon Major has also broadened who is showing up to run. “I feel like inevitably, since becoming a major, it has significantly changed the dynamic and the diversity of people running,” she says. “It’s incredible to see people coming from all over the world to run in this one event, including elite athletes that we’ve never seen on Sydney soil before.”

But the biggest change, she says, is the growing number of everyday people who are now willing to give the marathon a try. “People are more open to running now. I feel like, especially with things like the long cut-off time, it’s given people the opportunity to bite the bullet and say, ‘You know what, I want to give this a shot,’ and actually train for their first marathon.”

It’s a change she believes is helping the race feel more representative of the city around it.

A MORE VISIBLE COMMUNITY

Ben Vincent, a Sydney Marathon community ambassador, crew leader at Kings Cross Track Club and member of Sydney’s LGBTQIA+ community, says the transition is still evolving. “There is representation, there is inclusivity and there is access,” he says. “And I feel like this is the marathon that actually made this happen.”

He has seen progress in how the marathon engages underrepresented communities. “I see a clear shift within Sydney’s marathon ecosystem,” he says. “Organisers are increasingly partnering with diverse communities and amplifying their voices to reflect a broader, more representative running culture.”

For Ben, visibility matters because inclusion is about more than who signs up. It is about who feels they belong. For LGBTQIA+ runners in particular, participation is often shaped less by what an event’s official messaging says and more by what people experience.

“Whether there’s visible representation, whether their identity is recognised without friction, and whether they’ve got a run club or community around them that makes it feel like a space they belong in,” he says. 

But he believes the work is not finished. “It still feels like the city is in a transition phase. There’s more intent now, and more visibility, but it hasn’t fully landed across the whole experience yet.”

Sydney is one of the most welcoming cities in the world for LGBTQIA+ people, and the queer running community already exists. The next step is ensuring it becomes an unmistakable part of the marathon itself.

A RACE THAT ISN’T JUST ABOUT TIME

For elites, the Sydney Marathon now sits in a different category. It’s not the fastest course on the circuit – but it’s not trying to be. Berlin and, outside of the World Marathon Majors, Valencia are built for time. Sydney is built for racing.

That raises an obvious question: if athletes can run faster elsewhere, will they still choose Sydney?

According to Leanne, the answer is yes. “Definitely,” the ASICS athlete says. “For the elites, a race is a race, and this is one where you don’t necessarily have to focus on a time.”

The hills and undulating terrain create a different dynamic to the world’s fastest marathons. “It can be a little bit more tactical,” she says. “It brings everyone a little bit closer together and makes it a bit more exciting.”

Rather than rewarding whoever can lock into a pace and hold it for 42.2 kilometres, Sydney creates opportunities for strategy, unpredictability and genuine competition.

“Different things are important for different elites,” says Brady. “Sometimes it’s fast times, Australian records or qualifying standards. But Sydney is a race amongst the elites to try to win those Australian titles.”

The podcast co-host believes that distinction could become one of the race’s defining strengths. “It’s a unique course,” he says. “People talk about it in similar terms to Boston and New York. It’s not pancake flat. It’s a course you need to study, research and train for if you want to run your best race.”

For Leanne, the appeal extends beyond competition alone. “For everyone else coming to the Sydney Marathon, it’s just such a scenic course,” she says. “And there are some courses you don’t necessarily do for a PB.”

That combination of scenery, atmosphere and competition is helping Sydney carve out its own identity among the majors. Athletes can chase fast times elsewhere. Then they can come to Sydney to race.

“It’s going to be on everyone’s calendar,” says Leanne. “Most marathoners will do two or three marathons a year – so they can choose somewhere else that’s flat and fast, but then they can put the Sydney Marathon in as somewhere they can compete.”

THE RACE THAT BECAME SOMETHING ELSE

Two years ago, Jasmine lined up for the Sydney Marathon as a first-time marathoner who barely knew anyone in the city’s running community. “I ran in 2023 initially as a solo runner,” she says. “I was mostly isolated in my journey to running my first marathon.”

Today, through her work with the Sydney Muslim Run Club and as a Sydney Marathon community ambassador, the race she entered as a stranger has become a community she now helps shape.

In many ways, that transformation mirrors the marathon itself. Joining the World Marathon Majors reshaped the Sydney Marathon. In the process, it became something more than a bigger race. It became a place where more people can see themselves on the start line, in the crowd and as part of the story.

That may be the most significant change of all.