Abbott World Marathon Majors 6-star finishers: a complete analysis
All World Marathon Majors have been canceled in 2020, and there are ongoing doubt and speculation about the nature and form of the future races (elite-only vs mass-participation). Runners all over the world are wondering when (or if) they might be able to finish their journey to become a Six Star Finisher 🌟.
The study below analyzes the journey of 5262 6-Star finishers, based on the data provided by the Abbott World Marathon Majors Hall of Fame. The aim of this study is to analyze various aspects of these marathoners’ experiences (timeline, running journey, demographics, performance, etc.) and provide both runners and businesses with key insights.
1. Timeline analysis
Since the creation of the 6-Star system by Abbott World Marathon Majors (AbbottWMM) in 2013*, thousands of runners all over the world started to work toward achieving their finisher medals. Based on the data from 5262 runners (as of July 2020), the number of finishers really began to soar in 2014, almost 8 years after the launch of the program. The last 3 years have accounted for over 80% of total finishers, with over 48% in just the last year.
*Note: Prior to 2016, only a certificate was awarded for runners completing each of the six marathons.
It takes over 7 years, on average, to get all 6 stars. The graph above shows that almost 75% of finishers managed it in a period ranging from 3 to 9 years. 19 lucky runners managed to get all completions in just 1 year (lucky bastards 😂), while it took over 30 years for 10 of them. The person who took the longest to score all 6 is a male runner from the US whose first major was in 1982, in Chicago. What dedication, champ 👏👏!
*Edit: based on the feedback received from a 6-Star finisher, the average duration is actually longer. Indeed, while some “local” runners might have run one or more majors more than once, only the fastest time is selected by Abbott for the finisher certificate, potentially decreasing the actual duration to complete. In the example shared by this runner, his certificate mentions that all races took place from 2016 to 2019, but in fact, he ran his first London in 2014. In reality, it took him 5 years instead of 3 only.
2. Demographic analysis
The Hall of Fame data did not include gender. Therefore, I utilized the API provided by Genderize to categorize finishers in male 🏃♂️ and female 🏃🏻♀️ categories (with 2.6% being non-categorized due to special characters not displayed on the Abbott website).
Almost 70% are male runners, with 13% of them coming from North America. We will dive further into geo-analytics later, but it’s significant to split the runners into those living in North America, where 3 of 6 marathon majors are held, and the rest of the world. When it comes to female runners, we can note that close to 9% come from North America (or almost 1/3 of all female runners, where the ratio is less than 1/5 for males). We can presume that North-American female runners are either more active or eager to earn the 6-Star finisher status than their counterparts from other regions. Indeed, the female to male ratio is 41% in North America, while it’s only 29% for the rest of the world.
3. Geographical analysis
Unsurprisingly, since 3 out of 6 majors are held in the US, the country with the highest percentage (18.1%) of all 6-Star holders is the US, followed by Great Britain (10.5%) and Germany (5.7%). Both Germany and Great Britain have one WMM each, which logically explains this ranking. Surprisingly, Italian runners are ranked fourth, missing third place by only 0.1%, followed by Chinese racers. Other noteworthy nations include Spain, Canada, Mexico and Japan. Despite having their own marathon major (Tokyo joined AbbottWMM in 2014), Japanese runners seem to be less interested in achieving the 6-Stars challenge, probably due to their distant geographical location, making it challenging from a financial and practical point of views to travel to Europe and the US. The language barrier may be another reason; however, this issue can be easily solved with tour operators specialized in sports travel.
We can observe on the map above four main concentration areas: North America (the US and Canada), Latin America (Mexico and Brazil), Europe (UK, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Netherland, Belgium, Ireland) and APAC (Japan, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Australia).
We can note that some countries with relatively small population sizes have quite a large number of finishers. We can look at the relative ratio of the number of finishers vs. a country’s overall population to determine how “active” that country is.
The most “active” countries are those with a small population (less than 10 million). 7 out of the top 10 countries are from Western Europe (Ireland, Denmark, Switzerland, Great Britain, Sweden, Netherlands, and Belgium). APAC is well represented, with 5 countries in the top 20 (Hong Kong, Australia, Taiwan, Japan and Korea). Both Canada and the US representing North America are in this top 20, while Mexico is the only country from Latin America. Poland, from Eastern Europe, closes the list of European countries.
Globally, 12 countries are located in Europe, 5 in APAC region, 2 in North America and 1 in Latin America.
4. Performance Analysis
Next, we’ll take a deep dive into the performance analysis and find out which marathon is the fastest and which nation has the fastest finishers.
It’s a well-known fact among runners that the Berlin marathon is considered to be the fastest. And the data confirms this, with the world record (2:01:39) established by Kipchoge in Berlin in 2018. In Berlin again, Bekele missed that record by 2 seconds in 2019, becoming the second-fastest marathoner of all times. A lot of runners claim that they achieved their PR on this flat and fast course, and this is also confirmed by the average finish times of 6-Star holders.
Berlin is followed by Chicago, New York, London, Tokyo, and finally Boston. Boston is known for Heartbreak Hill, the steep, half-mile incline at mile 20 in the race, which might explain the slower times. Here is an excellent article from Runners World comparing Boston’s elevation map with other major US marathons.
The table on the left provides the ranking of the fastest countries (average finisher time) with at least 50 finishers. 4 European countries can be found in the top 5, led by a noticeable margin by the Polish runners, followed by British, Spanish, Swiss and Australian runners.
The time difference between the first and the last country in this ranking is quite significant: over 30 min (03:43 vs 04:15 🕒)!
Fun fact: Polish female runners (11 finishers) are faster than most male runners(🏃🏻♀️ girl power 🏃🏽♀️)!
5. 6-star Order Analysis (Running Journey)
In this last section, we will analyze the journey these runners took to become 6-Star finishers. The section below provides an overview of the number of runners per marathon major and their respective order.
In the case of Berlin, we can observe that people tend to opt for Berlin for their 2nd or 1st marathons, while Tokyo is clearly often the last medal to be achieved (over 50% of finishers went to Tokyo for their last medal).
Boston, due to its qualification particularities (each runner has to meet the qualifying time set for each age group) has a quite even distribution of runners.
Over a third of runners start their running journey in NY, while Tokyo and London seem to be the toughest to get into. In the case of Tokyo, the vast majority of runners come from the APAC region (Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, Australia, and of course Japan) for their first bling.
Berlin is the go-to marathon to get the second star. Chicago and NY each have 1/5 of all finishers. Again, Tokyo and London come in last as people’s second race.
The order is slightly different for star #3: Berlin and Chicago swapped their respective places, while NYC is pushed down to the 5th place. Tokyo keeps its 6th place unchanged.
London and Chicago share first place for the 4th star, with 20.4% of runners each, followed closely by Boston. NYC and Tokyo keep their places down the ranking, although the number of Tokyo finishers is growing steadily.
For star 5, London is still in the first place, while Tokyo gets the second position. Previously #1 ranked marathons are now at the end, with Berlin being in the last position here.
And finally, Tokyo is the winner, with over 50% of finishers ending their 6-star challenge in Japan. Berlin is the least popular option while NY and Chicago swapped their positions.
Overview of a (typical) runner journey
The tables below provide an overview of the most likely journey to achieve 6-Stars depending on the region of residency, based on the statistical distribution.
There are 720 different possible combinations for the challenge completion order. But since it’s not a perfectly equally distributed model, some combinations are way more popular than the others. Also, out of 720 possibilities, only 563 actually happened, we will probably need another couple of thousand of finishers to see all possibilities tested.
Below the top 10 of the most frequent “journeys” taken by runners to complete the 6-Star challenge.
6. Benchmark with my own journey
One of my running goals includes the completion of all 6 World Marathon Majors. My journey started in 2018, with the Chicago Marathon, followed a month later with the NYC Marathon. I was lucky to have achieved qualifying times for my age group for Chicago, and I got a lottery entry for NY. My third (and for now the last) major was the Berlin marathon in September 2019.
Early 2020 I ran a 2:55 marathon in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, which was supposedly enough to get into the 2021 Boston Marathon in my age group, before the pandemic struck. According to the numbers, it should be easier for me to run the Boston and London marathons before the one held in Tokyo, especially with the current speculations on its “elite-only” tenure.
Let’s take a close look at how my journey correlates with the numbers above while taking into account my residency in Florida, US.
Benchmark
- Chicago marathon (2018): choice #3 overall for a first major but #1 for North Americans. My choice is 100% aligned with the statistical distribution when taking into account geographical location.
- New York (2018): choice #3 both overall and for North Americans for a second major. It’s not a perfect hit, with Boston surprisingly being the #1 choice for North American runners for the second star, or Berlin for the other regions.
- Berlin (2019): choice #2 overall and #1 for North American runners. As with Chicago, it’s a 100% match. In fact, 51% of runners who already had NYC and Chicago medals opted for this race for their 3rd major.
- London (202X): based on the distribution of runners from North America, London should be my next race (vs Boston), hopefully in October 2021, assuming it will not be an elite-only race.
- Boston (202Y): fingers crossed for my Boston qualification. At this point is a matter of whether the race will be held physically or virtually, given the ongoing cancellation of spring races. The best-case scenario is April 2021 (although I have big doubts that this one will happen in-person) or 2022.
- Tokyo (202Z): since it is a lottery and only a handful of foreigners get into the Tokyo marathon each year, my chances to finish it in 2021 or 2022 are very slim, unless I opt for a charity bib.
It does not matter how many marathons you have run in your life: it is something special to run every single major marathon and join the club of 6-Star holders. 2020 is a blank year for all of us who were hoping to add new medals 🏅to our collection of six AbbottWMM.
The pandemic has changed the game, and it is unclear when the next marathon major will take place (Tokyo or Boston in spring 2021?) nor will we be able to travel with all the different restrictions and bans. A lot of runners, myself included, have found it challenging to keep training with no clear goals and deadlines.
The running-race industry has been heavily affected by the pandemic. Some might never bounce back and see another race. Most events have shifted from in-person to a virtual edition in hopes of maintaining some of the income. The emergence of virtual events was warmly welcomed by some runners, while others see no added value in participating, the race atmosphere and in-person experience being more important for them than the medal. Whatever your point of view is on the topic, we can all agree that the next race will have a different taste. Hopefully, it will be one where runners are not asked to maintain social distancing, without compromising public health.
If you have any questions or comments, feel free to reach out by email on sardar[at]skief.co
