2021 TOKYO MARATHON TO MOVE TO THE FALL
By David Monti, @d9monti
(c) 2020 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved - Used with permission.

(09-Oct) -- Organizers of the 2021 Tokyo Marathon, part of the global Abbott World Marathon Majors series, have decided to shift the race from it's traditional early March position in the calendar to October as a response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.  The board of directors of the Tokyo Marathon Foundation voted today to move the 36,000-runner race to Sunday, October 17.

The intention, organizers said, was to put on both mass and elite races "together in the original field size," according to a statement circulated to the media today.

As it stands now, five of the six commercial races of the Abbott World Marathon Majors are scheduled for the fall of 2021: Berlin, September 26; London, October 3; Chicago, October 10; Tokyo, October 17; and New York, November 7.  The sixth and oldest race of the series, the Boston Marathon, is still scheduled for its traditional date of April 19 (third Monday in April), but registration has not yet opened.  Registration would have normally opened in September.  The race organizer, the Boston Athletic Association, is studying the situation.

In 2020, only two Abbott World Marathon Majors events were able to take place.  The Tokyo Marathon was held as a city-wide, elite-only race on March 1, and the Virgin Money London Marathon was held as a closed-course, elite-only race last Sunday.

Tokyo organizers also said that they would hold some related events next March "to create a momentum leading to the Tokyo Marathon 2021," including a global remote-participation (virtual) marathon.  Details will be announced in December.

Separately, organizers of the most important winter marathon in the United States, the Chevron Houston Marathon, announced that their January 17, event was cancelled as an in-person race and would be held virtually, instead.


PHOTO: The start of the 2019 Tokyo Marathon (photo courtesy of Tokyo Marathon Foundation)