Analysts of the marathon scene will be faced with some difficulties to find statistical material that allows them to take a European perspective. How many persons ran a marathon in Europe? What were the trends in participation in different countries?

What are the biggest European races and how did participation in these races change? Publicly available source provide little evidence to answer these questions.

If you are interested in these issues, there is a new publication you might be interested in. “European marathons 2012” is to my knowledge the first study taking a European view marathon scene. The study is based on a new and unique data base which currently contains information on more than 300 marathon races in Europe in the years 2010 to 2012.

The 27-pages study is written in English and it will be made available as a personalized PDF document.

Its prize is 16,00 €. You can order the study on the website https://www.laufmarkt.de/In-English/Study-2012.

There you will also find details on the terms of payment.

 

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. The latter table alos contains information on the change in particpation.

 

Dr. Roland Döhrn

 

Europe's Biggest Marathons

 

Europe's biggest Marathons 2012

 

Rank Event Country Finisher 2012 Finisher 2011 Change %

1 Virgin London Marathon GBR  36699  34805     5,4
2 Berlin-Marathon              GER 34377   32816     4,8
3 Marathon de Paris          FRA  32980   30648     7,6
4 Maratona de Barcelona  ESP  16013   12469   28,4
5 Stockholm Marathon      SWE 14676   15465    -5,1
6 Maratona di Roma          ITA   12677   12614     0,5
7 Dublin Marathon             IRE   12201   11682    4,4
8 Frankfurt Marathon        GER  11948   12428    -3,9
9 Marathon Hamburg        GER  10319   11188   -7,8
10 Amsterdam Marathon   NLD 10144      9637    5,3