For the third year, Dr. Roland Döhrn has presented an overview of the largest marathon races in Europe – an overview that presents the developments in individual countries in clear numbers.

It is surprising to see that the Paris Marathon moved up – quietly and almost unnoticed – to the top in Europe, ahead of the Berlin Marathon and the long-time leader, the London Marathon.

With Berlin, Hamburg and Frankfurt, there are still three German races among the top ten listed events.

Paris had 38,690 finishers, a respectable lead ahead of Berlin with 36,474 and London with 34,312 finishers. Hamburg moved to 7th place with 11,450 finishers ahead of Amsterdam with 11,307 and Frankfurt with 11,011 finishers.

Five other German races are among the top fifty races: the Munich Marathon, Cologne Marathon, Düsseldorf Marathon, the Rennsteig Race and the Münster Marathon.

In all, Great Britain had nine events among the top 50 races, Germany and France each had eight events, Poland five races, Spain and Italy each three, Switzerland and Holland each two, and all other nations listed among the top 50 had one race each: Sweden, Ireland, Denmark, Austria, Finland, Hungary, Portugal, Czech Republic, Russia, and Norway.

Horst Milde

Europe's Biggest Marathons

A new issue addressed on this site is a compilation of data on the biggest Marathon races in Europe. For this purpose, I set up a new data base, collecting information on the number of finishers at approximately 300 marathon events in Europe, which accounted in total for about 500 000 finishers in 2011.

It is not the aim to list all marathon races, which would be extremely ambitious. But by covering the most important races in most countries, the data allow to draw a representative picture of development in Europe. The estimate is that mor than 90% of all marathon participants in Europe a covered by the data base.

The subsequent tables show a ranking of the races according to size in 2011 and 2012, and a table prividing first results fo 2013 The latter table also contains information on the change in particpation.

Prof. Dr. Roland Döhrn
Milchstr. 18
45277 Essen 

 Finisher                                   2013      2012      %
1 Marathon de Paris FRA        38690   32980    17,3
2 Berlin-Marathon GER           36474   34377      6,1
3 Virgin London Marathon GBR    34312    36699       -6,5
4 Stockholm Marathon SWE        15653     14676        6,7
5 Maratona de Barcelona ESP     14778      16013      -7,7
6 Dublin Marathon IRE                12346     12201       1,2
7 Marathon Hamburg GER      11450   10319    11,0
8 Amsterdam Marathon NLD       11307     10144       11,5
9 Frankfurt Marathon GER      11011   11948    -7,8
10 Maratona di Roma ITA            10665    12677       -15,9
11 Madrid Marathon ESP              10462     9959          5,1
12 Copenhagen Marathon DMK      9177     9506          3,5
13 Brighton Marathon GBR             9110     8910         2,2
14 Warszawa Marathon POL           8509     6706       26,9
15 Marathon Rotterdam NLD          8377    7841          6,8
16 Edinburgh Marathon GBR           8200    8084         1,4
17 Marathon du Medoc FRA            7905     7395         6,9
18 Vienna City Marathon AUT         6868     5892      16,6
19 München Marathon GER       6469    6084       6,3
20 Maraton Ciudad de SevillaESP   5939     4349       36,6
21 Prag Marathon CZE                   5769     5624       2,6
22 Poznan Marathon POL               5679     5426       4,7
23 Venice Marathon ITA                 5326     5934      -10,2
24 Köln Marathon GER               5132    4807       6,8
25 Greater Manchester GBR           5017
26 Cracovia Marathon POL             4419      3013     46,7
27 Helsinki City Marathon FIN        4370      4261      2,6
28 Orlen Warszawa Marathon POL  3947
29 Jungfrau Marathon CH               3820      6317    -39,5
30 Milano City Maratona ITA           3514     3976     -11,6
31 Wroclaw Marathon POL              3500     3900      -10,3
32 Marathon Toulouse FRA             3485      2653       31,4
33 Budapest Marathon HUN            3137      3585     -12,5
34 Metro-Group Düsseldorf       2968     3037     -2,3
35 Chester Marathon GBR              2918       2072      42,4
36 Marathon de Nantes FRA            2887      2537       13,8
37 Rennsteiglauf GER                 2872     3415    -15,9
38 Marathon de Saint Michel FRA     2782     3564      -21,9
39 Maratona do Porto POR              2755      1671       64,9
40 Loch Ness Marathon GBR            2701     2552         5,8
41 Belfast Citymarathon GBR          2542     2882      -11,8
42 Treviso Marathon ITA                 2540     2050       23,9
43 Marathon du Lac Annecy FRA      2456     2625        -6,4
44 Zürich Marathon CH                    2452     2915      -15,9
45 Moscow City Marathon RUS        2336
46 Oslo-Marathon NOR                    2292     1822       25,8
47 Volksbank Münster GER        2178    2121       2,7
48 Milton Keynes Marathon GBR     2046      2828      -27,7
49 Marathon de Vannes FRA           1986      1904         4,3
50 Marathon Mont-Blanc FRA          1921      1749         9,8

Containing races until end of October 2013

Dr. Roland Döhrn in Laufmarkt

LAUFMARKT

Europe's Biggest Marathons '13 Containing races until end of October Europe 2013 engl 191103.pdf [ 36,3 KB ]   Europe's Biggest Marathons '12 Final result Europe 2012 engl final.pdf [ 35,4 KB ]   Europe's Biggest Marathons '11 Updated! Europe 2011 engl 1101.pdf [ 31,7 KB ]