About this episode

The episode discusses the historic announcement of the Cape Town Marathon as the 8th World Marathon Major and its implications for the running community.

It's official, and it's historic: the Cape Town Marathon has been named the 8th Abbott World Marathon Major — the first ever on the continent of Africa. In this surprise emergency episode, Michael Doyle and news editor Jesse Carveth break down the announcement the running world saw coming but couldn't stop talking about (00:37). They walk the full eight-major calendar from Tokyo to New York (01:28), make the case for why Africa was long overdue given that roughly 80% of the world's top 50 marathoners come from the continent (02:23), and explain what the new eight-star medal — and the provisional star for 2025 and 2026 entrants — means for star chasers (03:26). From there, the guys trace Cape Town's meteoric rise from ~16,000 to nearly 30,000 runners (03:59), revisit the brutal 2025 cancellation when severe winds stopped the race roughly 90 minutes before the gun (04:50), and unpack the 2027 ballot — open June 10, closing June 24 — including the decision to reserve two-thirds of entries for African runners (05:55). They dig into the Sanlam sponsorship extension (07:20) and ask the question on everyone's mind: with London drawing 1.4 million applicants, could Cape Town become the…

People in this episode

Hosts: Michael Doyle, Jesse Carveth

Topics covered

• Cape Town Marathon
• World Marathon Majors
• African runners
• marathon entry process
• sponsorship in sports
• marathon history

Keywords

• Cape Town Marathon
• World Marathon Major
• African runners
• marathon entry
• Sanlam sponsorship
• Kipchoge
• 2027 ballot

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Cape Town Marathon, Abbott World Marathon Major, Sanlam

Places: Africa, London, Valencia

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