The road to another one of this year’s marathon majors got a little bit tighter as the New York Road Runners announced on Wednesday that just three percent of lottery applicants will run the 2025 New York City Marathon.
According to NYRR, over 200,000 applications were submitted for the drawing — a new record for the organization — for a chance at running the largest of the majors on November 2.
“The TCS New York City Marathon is a special event that brings together people of all backgrounds with participants as young as 18 and as old as 87 from more than 150 countries, all united by the transformative power of running,” Rob Simmelkjaer, CEO of NYRR said in a statement.
The three percent lottery acceptance rate represents around 6,000 of the more than 50,000 participants who are expected to cross the finish line in Central Park. The remainder of the entries are divided between 9+1 program guaranteed slots to runners who participated in nine NYRR races and volunteered at one of the organization’s events in the past year.
Meanwhile, corporate partners, time qualifiers, philanthropic members and runners who have completed 15 or more New York City Marathons are make up the remainder of those granted bibs.
For those not selected in Wednesday’s drawing, there is still hope to make it to the start line in Staten Island in November.
A NYRR member-only second chance ballot was also held on Wednesday, while other hopefuls can join a charity partner. Non-U.S. residents have the option of running via a tour operator and NYRR’s Team for Climate, which raises money to help offset carbon emissions generated at its races events, opens in April in exchange for a marathon spot.
And finally, a race sweepstakes will award five winners a pair of entries while five runners-up get one slot each.
With the 200,000 lottery applications, interest in the race — and other majors — continues to rise rapidly.
Last year over 165,000 applications were handled by NYRR, and this year the Boston Athletic Association rejected a staggering 12,000 time qualifiers who did not meet the cut-off time that was lowered by 6 minutes and 51 seconds across age and gender standards for the Boston Marathon.
This year’s London Marathon saw an astonishing 840,000 lottery entries submitted, while more than 160,00 applied for the Chicago Marathon.
The Sydney Marathon, now part of the marathon majors lineup, saw a drastic boost in applications and held it’s first ballot for the 2025 race which will be held August 31. Over 79,000 ballots were filed for 35,000 slots as the race capacity has been increased from the 25,000 finishers who crossed the line last year.
—
(Photo courtesy of New York Road Runners)
