London Marathon

[Hoppinggreen]

I understand that TW are still allowed to run in todays London marathon as women. their times will be registered as womens times.
The marathon argue that its not a competitive event and people are not running against eachother so it doesn't matter but I would arge that it DOES as times are registered and published along with rankings.
I think the elite event is still sex segregated, no idea how they are policing that though.
I imagine that as people registered a while ago beore the ruling so perhaps it was too late to make any changes but even so its not really fair for women to be ranked with men

Elite is - and has always been - biological men and women.

A very different approach to the rest... around 55,000 of them???

I feel like this is to be expected.

I would imagine that if people signing up were asked to declare their gender (and not sex) the marathon organisers won't know who all the transwomen are so there wouldn't be a way of recording their times as anything other than what they declared.

Next year might be different but I can't see how they could have practically enforced recording transwomen as men for this year.

I agree with this. It has come too soon after the ruling for them to do anything practical at this stage.

The problem is that sign up for next year is on the same basis. Really they should be suspending that until they have clarity.

Does this affect good for age times? If you look at the difference, the time required for men to achieve good for age is a lot faster than women’s. Will women’s times now be artificially sped up by transwomen’s times being counted as female meaning the good for age time expected for females might start to become more unachievable for women over time or is that not how it works? For most of the big races you can qualify under good for age if you can’t get a ballot entry or raise ££££ for charity.

I feel about this as I do about parkrun. The one and only foolproof way for a runner's sex to be correctly recorded is for that runner to put the right sex down on the race entry form. If the race organisers ask to see supporting ID, a good many trans-identified runners will be able to produce a passport or driving licence that says they are the opposite of their natal sex, because my understanding is that (up to now, anyway) these documents have been re-issued showing the new gender on request, no GRC required.

We need to get back to a position where it is regarded as cheating for males to enter as females and it is stated very plainly indeed that for sporting purposes you remain your birth sex for the rest of your life. (I can't see why any female would enter as a male, as it would be a big disadvantage, but they probably ought to be treated the same.) If these males grasp that the vast majority of other people are outraged by this, maybe, just maybe, the shame and humiliation will push them into doing the right thing.

Yes, I know, not going to happen - for a while, anyway.

I believe It’s a licensed competition so it’s unfair to have male times in the female section. End of.

They should stop publishing rankings by category if they can’t accurately determine eligibility for the categories. As pp said, men competing in the female category for anything is cheating, and if cheats are found (just like if someone takes a quicker route) they should be disqualified. Disqualified competitors should face some sort of consequence up to and including being banned.

And yes, I’d should accurately reflect sex as well as gender if required. Why are transpeople so ashamed of being trans? Be who you are and stand up to bullies, instead of sneaking around bullying other people.

How could they possibly police it for the masses? No one proves their sex (or age) to enter.

For good for age entries, the qualifying times are the same for trans women as they are for men.

That's interesting. Last time I checked Boston Marathon entry, the trans category aligned with women's qualifying times.

Running is one of those sports which just seems to come so much easier to men. Check the complete finish times and see where the first woman features, it’s further down than I thought. A female GFA time is very achievable for a man, both my husband and neighbour ran today and beat the female good for age times in their age categories but only the very top women could hope to touch the male GFA times.

The GFA time favours women because there are far fewer female entrants. The men's and women's marathon record times are only 10 mins apart. The GFA has a much bigger gap because they want the same number of male and female GFA qualifiers, but get far fewer female applicants.

Fast, short running might come easier to men, but the gap closes the longer the distance. At 200m + women start beating men.

I ran London yesterday for my running club. I have posted before about being a running coach and that it is so important to protect women's sports at all levels.

The ballot is open for next year and seems to be on self identification.

In terms of non-binary category, the Good for age was based on the women's tunes which coughs be really exploited. Also the NB prizes too - I know some fast men who could actually win those.

I will share the sign for the women's urinals - the urinals themselves were great as no queue but womxm really annoyed me.

I've just looked at the Good For Age enter for 2026 and non-binary option is no longer there.

At 200m + women start beating men.

This is a persistent myth that a lot of people would like to be true, but it really isn't the case. There are several small relatively-fringe events where women have won, but they're rare and it only happens because the number of entrants is very small and the events don't attract all of the very best runners for all sorts of reasons.

In fact, elite men are about 10% faster than elite women across all running distances, including ultradistances.

Agree, some people are stating with absolute confidence what anyone with experience of the sport knows not to be true. I’ve never seen a woman finish as the overall winner in any race I’ve attended where men are also running. The only one I can think of iis the ultra distance runner who hit the headlines because it was such an unusual position to be in.

As long as the elite (competitive) race is in sex categories, I think this is a non-issue personally

Would also be interested in understanding how this works

I find this website useful to see the difference between the sexes with sports: https://boysvswomen.com/#/

I also looked at the non-binary results for the London marathon which was interesting. The first obvious female name was 16th (out of 25): https://results.tcslondonmarathon.com/2025/?pid=list