Domestic marathon events — how do they rank globally in 2025 ? Based on data from the World Athletics website, this article compiles 2025 world rankings of all domestic marathons certified by World Athletics.
40 domestic marathons, the top three by event score are: Shanghai Marathon, Xiamen Marathon and Wuxi Marathon, with world rankings of 8, 15 and 21 , respectively. The number of domestic marathons in the world's top 50 is 10 races; in the top 100 there are 20 races.
How are event scores calculated? The calculation logic for World Athletics certified event rankings can be summed up in one sentence:
Event score = Performance score + Field strength score + World-recordbonus points
It should be emphasized that this ranking evaluates theelite competition level, that is, the competitive performance standard of elite marathon athletes, but it does not evaluate the mass-participant experience or race size.
The first item the performance score is calculated by selecting 8 best event performance scores (a maximum of 5 per same-gender category may be counted), the higher the performance score, the better the results achieved by elite athletes in the races.
Performance scores — what are they, and which performances correspond to which scores? According to the latest World Athletics (WA) scoring tables'— result-to-score conversion table, we can see
To earn a full 1400 points, male athletes need to run a time of 1:55:54,
International elite（2:12:50） corresponds to 1080 points;
Female athletes must run to 2:01:23 to earn the maximum score of 1400 points,
An international-class athlete (2:33:20) level can earn 1087 points.
In the event scoring, the second item—the competitor-level score—selects from the participating athletes 8 highest competitor-level scores. Each athlete's competitor-level score is the highest of the following three scores:
World ranking position (athletes with world rankings 1-100 correspond to 150-5 points),
Top three at the most recent World Championships or Olympics (for the same event, 1-3 places correspond to 120-40 points),
Current world record holder（120 points）。
Item three Breaking world recordsBonus points mean that each time a world record is set in the event, the correspondingbonus points will be added to the combined total of the event performance score and the participant level score:
New world record 120 minutes,
Matched the world record 60 minutes,
World-record split: 30 minutes,
Matched world-record split: 15 minutes.
40 Among 40 World Athletics-certified domestic marathons, the top three by event score are:
Shanghai Marathon,
Xiamen Marathon,
Wuxi Marathon.
It is worth mentioning that,2025 Chongqing Marathon ranked domestically No. 5, with an entry level score of 0, indicating that no athletes ranked in the world's top 100 participated, but the relatively good finishing times of the elite athletes still placed the Chongqing Marathon at world No. 32 rank.
Also, the Shenzhen Marathon, ranked 12th domestically, although the elite athletes performed modestly and the event's performance score ranks only 78th in the world, yet the elite field is very star-studded, with the event quality score reaching 210 points, second only to the Shanghai Marathon, the country's top event.
Below is the complete ranking of scores for all World Athletics-certified domestic marathon races for 2025 :
Will this table be helpful when you sign up for future races?
