The greatest prizes in marathon running are normally decided across 26.2 miles. The running order for the 2027 TCS London Marathon needed only three hand signals.
Catherine Debrunner defeated Sabastian Sawe at rock, paper, scissors to settle which elite fields would race on the traditional Sunday of London’s first two day marathon weekend.
Debrunner’s victory means the elite women and women’s wheelchair fields will compete on Sunday April 25th. The elite men and men’s wheelchair races will open the weekend on Saturday April 24th.
It was a wonderfully simple answer to a sizeable scheduling question. London plans to welcome 100,000 participants across the two days, with its elite races being divided for the first time in the event’s history.
A World Record Of A Different Kind
This was not simply an informal contest arranged behind the scenes.
Sawe and Debrunner played in front of an official adjudicator, creating a new Guinness World Records title for the first elite marathon race start decided by rock, paper, scissors.
Debrunner’s win secured the Sunday programme for the women. Sawe had to accept defeat on this occasion, although the consequences were considerably lighter than those normally attached to losing against another world record holder.
The Swiss wheelchair champion is a four time London winner and holds the women’s wheelchair marathon record of 1:34:16.
Sawe arrives with a fairly significant piece of history of his own. The Kenyan retained his London title in April by running 1:59:30, becoming the first man to complete a record eligible competitive marathon in under two hours.
Two world record holders were therefore involved, but neither needed racing shoes, drinks or pacemakers to settle this contest.
What Debrunner’s Victory Decided
The elite men’s wheelchair race and elite men’s race will be held on Saturday April 24th. The male Championship and Good For Age fields will also compete that day.
The elite women’s wheelchair race and elite women’s race follow on Sunday April 25th, alongside the female Championship and Good For Age runners.
Both days will still contain mixed mass participation fields, with male, female and non binary entrants running together.
The division provides considerably more room in the weekend programme for each elite contest. The women’s Championship runners will also line up behind the elite women for the first time in London, with the women’s wheelchair race beginning the action shortly beforehand.
It gives Sunday a clear focus on women’s marathon racing while the men receive the responsibility of opening the weekend.
One Marathon Becomes Two
The expanded programme will be used for one year only as London attempts to accommodate 100,000 runners.
Demand has already reached extraordinary levels. A total of 1,338,544 people applied through the public ballot, representing an increase of 18 per cent from the previous year.
More than one million applications came from the United Kingdom, while over 330,000 were submitted from abroad. That international figure included more than 21,000 applications from Ireland.
Those numbers help explain the decision to spread the event across an entire weekend. London welcomed close to 60,000 finishers in 2026, but the next edition will ask the city, its volunteers and its race organisers to manage almost twice that number.
Splitting the elite fields should also prevent one race becoming lost among a packed schedule. The men and women will each receive a separate morning at the centre of the occasion.
National Titles And Championship Places At Stake
The weekend will carry far greater consequences than its unusual method of arranging the schedule might suggest.
The 2027 event will host the UK Athletics Marathon Championships and act as the official British trial for the World Athletics Championships in Beijing later that year.
The first two eligible British athletes across the line in each elite race can earn selection opportunities, provided they have achieved the required World Athletics qualifying times.
The standards have been set at 2:06:00 for men and 2:23:20 for women.
London will also form part of the British selection process for the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. The leading eligible British man and woman can secure provisional selection if they achieve the Olympic qualifying standards, which are expected to be announced before the end of 2026.
Their Olympic nominations would remain subject to further performances during the 2028 season.
The arrangement gives Britain’s leading marathon runners an unusual opportunity. A national title, a World Championships position and an important step towards Olympic selection could all be decided on the same course.
A Light Hearted Start To A Serious Weekend
Rock, paper, scissors provided the entertainment, but its result has established the shape of one of the largest marathon weekends ever attempted.
Sawe will lead the men into action on Saturday. Debrunner and the women will retain London’s traditional Sunday stage.
Their next contest is unlikely to be settled quite so quickly.
