On World Athletics' official website, the certification status of road races has been updated. All 27 Gold Label races for the year have been confirmed, this year the Wuhan Marathon and the Jilin Marathon have been designated as "Elite" status, missing out on Gold Label.
Last year, the number of Gold Label marathons worldwide reached 32 , of which more than half were domestic, and a number of races secured World Athletics Gold Label certification by offering large prize purses.
This situation changed this year: World Athletics tightened its assessment of Gold Label races, and the Wuhan Marathon being left out of the Gold Label became evidence of that. In fact, signs of this were already visible last year when the Wuhan Marathon organizing committee released the2026 Wuhan Marathon competition regulations.
Regarding prize money, the organizers issued the following statement:“The exact prize amounts for the marathon will be set and announced after World Athletics approves the race label, in accordance with the prize standards for that label.” However, the placement prizes for Chinese athletes in the marathon were published in the competition regulations at the same time: the first-place (time under2 hours 20 minutes) prize has been increased from last year's 50,000 RMB to 100,000 RMB. The prizes for the top four have all doubled compared with last year, and the fifth and sixth place prizes have also been increased to varying degrees.
From this it’s clear that the Wuhan Marathon organizing committee is both willing and able to raise prize-money levels, but since a “cash offensive” cannot guarantee World Athletics Gold Label status, they need to wait for World Athletics to approve its label before setting the corresponding appropriate prize-money standards.
In the2026 certification rules for Gold Label events, World Athletics makes clear that the global cap on Gold Label marathon events is 27 events (of which 25 are regular slots,2 are additional slots for ranking points), but single-sex marathons are not subject to a cap.
If the number of Gold Label applications meeting all criteria exceeds25 races, then for 2026, 20 Gold Label slots will be awarded to the marathons that have held Gold Label status for the longest consecutive period (years in which events were canceled due to the pandemic will not be counted as interruptions to the consecutive run). The next 5 Gold Label slots will be awarded to the marathons with the highest total prize money in 2026 (calculated based on the prize money for the top 8 finishers).
Additionally,two marathon Gold Label slots will be allocated based on the events' performance points; there will be no limit on the number of Gold Labels for all other distance events.
Before Wuhan and Jilin,races such as Xi'an and Chengduhad their Gold Label status revoked. These "lost-gold" races share a clear characteristic: they only became Gold Label events in 2024 or later, and World Athletics has clearly tightened the entry channel for these "newcomers", so we'll see that the Chinese races awarded Gold Label certification in 2026 are all long-established Gold Label events.
"Mixed pedigree" has become an important part of World Athletics' current labeling evaluation system, and the reason behind it is not hard to understand: events that have stood the test of time tend to have more consistent quality.
For domestic races, letting go of the obsession with the "Gold Label" may not be a bad thing. Securing a World Athletics Gold Label classification involves substantial financial input: not only the annual application fee, which has risen to $25,000, but also high prize money, appearance fees for international elite athletes, anti-doping testing costs, travel expenses for World Athletics observers, and so on.
When that portion of funding is freed up, organizers will be able to allocate more resources to improving the race experience for domestic participants and to incentivizing local athletes. That will fundamentally raise the quality of events and enable more sustainable development, which is of greater value to Chinese marathons.
What do you think about the change in World Athletics Gold Label race designations? When you sign up for a race, do you care whether it is a World Athletics Gold Label event? Share your thoughts in the comments.
