I’m currently working on a longer article about age group winners at the World Major Marathons. I’d been exploring the data a bit, and a simple question came to me while I was out for my run this week: which of the races have the fastest age group winners?
I was curious if one or more of the races were typically more competitive among masters runners, as well as whether this varied by gender and age group. I assumed, going into this, that Boston would be the most competitive since so many runners get in through qualifying times. But we’ll see if that hypothesis is borne out by the data.
I’ll be back with a more in depth analysis of age group winners over the years, but for this week we’re just going to do a quick exploration of this simple question. I gathered the results of the last three editions of each of the majors, identified the top three age group finishers at each race, and graphed them all to help compare the results of each age group across the six different races.
Let’s dig in.
Men’s Age Group Winners At the Majors
This first visual contains all of the data on the men. Each line contains nine results – the top three finishers at each of the last three editions of that particular race (2023-25 or 2024-26). The filter in the top left will switch between age groups.
Among men 40-44, there are a couple of huge outliers – Tadesse Abraham at the 2023 Berlin Marathon and Eliud Kipchoge at the 2025 London Marathon. This is a good example of how the 40-44 age group occasionally includes an elite runner. But when you look past those two, New York is consistently the fastest with Boston in second. Berlin, outside of Abraham, has the relative slowest winners for this age group.
In the 45-49 age group, there no longer any massive outliers. Tokyo has the absolute fastest runner (Toru Somiya, 2026), but otherwise Tokyo and London have relatively similar times. New York and Chicago have the slowest. This year, Boston had one particularly fast finisher, but otherwise it tends to sit in the middle of the group.
Among men 50-54, London has the absolute fastest runner (Will Green, 2026), but as a whole you might classify Berlin as the fastest. Tokyo and Chicago aren’t far behind, while Boston and New York definitely have the slowest times.
Moving up to 55-59, Berlin is way out front with two performances by Aleksandr Rogoten (2024 and 2025). He also had the fastest (but slightly slower) time at Tokyo this year. Boston and Chicago are kind of in the middle here, with New York and London featuring the slowest times.
Among men 60-64, New York is a step ahead of the others with a couple of particularly fast men. Chicago isn’t far behind. Berlin, Boston, and London have slower winners but a tighter spread. Tokyo is much further back, with the age group winners typically finishing around 2:50 compared to 2:40-2:45.
For men 65-69, Berlin has some of the fastest times – but also some of the slowest third place winners. Boston looks similar because of the fastest finisher, but that’s something of an outlier from this year. London has the tightest spread of finish times, but the winners are slower than at the other races.
Looking at men 70-74, New York has the single fastest time but otherwise Tokyo seems to have the fastest consistent group of winners. Berlin, Chicago, and London are all similar and just a step behind. Boston has the slowest winners for this age group.
In the 70-74 age group, Chicago has the fastest overall time. Gene Dykes won his age group at Chicago, Berlin, and Boston. Other than Gene, Chicago isn’t particularly fast for this age group and Berlin looks to be overall more competitive.
Finally, there’s the 80+ age group. This is probably the age group where Boston compares the best. It doesn’t have the absolute fastest time – which as at Berlin – but it’s close and the rest of the finishers form a tight cluster. Chicago and New York are the slowest races for men in their 80’s.
Women’s Age Group Winners At the Majors
Next, let’s take a run through the results for the women. The visual below is structured the same way as the men’s.
In this case, there aren’t any huge outliers. Although the difference between the fastest women in the 40-44 age group and typical elite times seems smaller than for the men. London has the fastest individual time (Vivian Cheruiyot, 2025), but Boston is right behind and has a tighter spread of times. Other than the winners, Tokyo has some of the slowest times.
For the 45-49 age group, Lisa Weightman (Berlin, 2024) is a huge outlier. Otherwise, the times at Berlin aren’t all that fast. As a whole, Boston and London are on the faster side. New York has the slowest times.
Among women 50-54, there are a couple outliers – most notably Alice Braham at London (2026). Otherwise, Tokyo is the fastest consistent group of age group winners. Boston and Chicago are among the slowest.
Moving to women 55-59, things are more tightly clustered. Berlin has the fastest time, with Chicago and Tokyo not far behind. Boston has the slowest group, with New York being only slightly faster.
For the 60-64 age group, Jenny Hitchings (Chicago, 2023) is way out front with a 2:49. Otherwise, Boston and London have the fastest times. And Berlin and New York have among the sowest.
Among women 65-69, there’s another big outlier (Mariko Yugeta, Tokyo, 2024). Otherwise, Boston and Chicago have the fastest times. London, on the other hand, is relatively slow.
Moving to women 70-74, Berlin has the fastest times by a little bit. London has the slowest. But in most cases, there’s a pretty big spread between the fastest and the slowest times – indicating less competition.
For the 75-79 age group, three marks stand out in front of the rest. They’re all Jeannie Rice, who won her age group in Chicago, London, and Tokyo. Other than that, Berlin has the fastest overall times and New York has the slowest.
At the oldest end of the spectrum, there are relatively few women in the 80+ category. The fastest times were at Boston. Some of the races didn’t have three women to fill out the top spots, and others (like New York), had some much slower runners in the top three.
So Which Race Has the Fastest Age Group Winners?
When you go through that one group at a time, it’s hard to see the big picture. Sometimes, an individual outlier obscures things. And it’s hard to keep all the difference races and age groups in your mind at once.
To simplify things, I boiled those times down to the mean finish time for the 9 runners at each race. Then I plotted them on a simpler visual that includes each age group and a colored dot for each race. There’s a filter that toggles between men and women.
When you include all of the age groups, it seems pretty obvious that things are more competitive at the younger age groups – through about 55-59 – and then things start drifting to the right very quickly. To some extent, that’s probably the impact of age. But at 75-79 and 80+, it’s probably also the fact that there just isn’t the same caliber of competition.
With the wide span of time on the x-axis, it’s hard to make out which race was fastest for each age group. So the visual below zooms in and focuses just on runners under 70.
For the men, Boston is the fastest race for the 40-44 and 60-64 age group. London is fastest for men 45-49. Berlin takes 50-54 and 55-59. And Tokyo is the fastest for men in the 65-69 age group.
For women, Boston is much faster in the 40-44 and 60-64 age groups. Tokyo takes 45-49 and 50-54, and is a close runner up for 55-59. London is the fastest for women 55-59. And Chicago is the fastest for women in the 65-69 age group.
To boil this down one step further, I ranked each race within each age group from 1-6 based on the average time. Then, I summed up those ranks for men and women in each race. So the lowest possible score would be 6, and the highest possible score would be 36.
For men, the fastest were Berlin and London (16) followed by Tokyo (17). For women, the fastest were London (16) and Tokyo (17). Boston ranked in the middle for both men (22) and women (20), and New York came in last (28, 29). Chicago was second to last for the men (27) and Berlin was second to last for the women (24).
So although they didn’t necessarily have the fastest individual times, London and Tokyo are consistently among the fastest for age group winners. If you’re hoping to place in your age group, you’ll have the best change at Berlin (for women) or Chicago (for men). While New York has the slowest times, it’s possible this is driven in part by the nature of the course, so I wouldn’t necessarily assume that the slower times here indicate a less competitive field.
What do you think – does any of this surprise you? Which race did you think would have the most competitive times for age group winners?