There are many ways to settle who runs when at a major championship race — seedings, form, broadcast schedules, long meetings behind closed doors. London Marathon organisers have gone for none of those. The elite race order for the 2027 event has been decided the playground way: with a game of rock, paper, scissors.
The contest pitted the reigning champions of the 2026 London Marathon against each other. Sabastian Sawe and Catherine Debrunner faced off under the supervision of an official adjudicator — and when the hands were thrown, it was Debrunner who came out on top, deciding the shape of next year’s elite weekend.
Her victory means the women’s elite race and the elite women’s wheelchair race will both be staged on Sunday 25 April 2027, while the men’s elite race and the elite men’s wheelchair race open proceedings a day earlier, on Saturday 24 April.
The Championship and Good for Age competitions follow the same split, with the men’s fields racing on Saturday and the women’s on Sunday. There is a notable first on the women’s side: female Championship runners will line up directly behind the women’s elite field for the first time in the event’s history, with the elite women’s wheelchair athletes setting off shortly before them.
The quirky decider has even earned a place in the record books, with Guinness World Records recognising it as the first elite marathon race start ever decided by a game of rock, paper, scissors.
The schedule forms part of the most radical shake-up in the race’s history. The 2027 edition, officially the Double TCS London Marathon, will unfold over an entire weekend, with around 100,000 runners expected across the two days. Both days will use the same traditional course from Greenwich to Westminster, and runners in the mass event can only run the in-person race on one of the two days. Saturday’s mass-participation field will mix male, female and non-binary runners.
Organisers stress the double weekend is a one-off for 2027 and is not currently planned to become the permanent format. It is a response to extraordinary demand, with a record 1.33 million people having entered the ballot for the 2027 race.
For spectators and runners alike, the split promises two distinct days of top-level racing. Hugh Brasher, chief executive of London Marathon Events, said it would allow organisers to put a greater spotlight on the elite athletes across the weekend. “We can now look forward to two spectacular days of elite racing, with the men opening the weekend on Saturday 24 April and the women launching the second day on Sunday 25 April,” he said.
Logistics are still being finalised, but Saturday is expected to get under way at around 9am, with the finish line closing at 5.30pm — giving participants a maximum of seven hours and 45 minutes to complete the course. Sunday’s start is pencilled in for around 9.30am, with final timings to be confirmed closer to the event. A double race weekend also means road closures and travel disruption spread across two days, so spectators will want to plan ahead.
The 2027 race also carries serious championship weight: it will host the UK Athletics Marathon Championships, act as an official trial for the 2027 World Athletics Championships and form part of the selection process for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games.
For club runners, charity fundraisers and first-timers, 2027 offers a rare second chance at the start line — twice as many places on the same famous route through the capital. The London Marathon remains one of the world’s best-known mass-participation sporting events, famous for its carnival atmosphere and the vast sums raised for charity every year.
London’s running calendar is already buzzing — 12,000 runners turned out for the first-ever Saucony Run Shoreditch Half — and with the elite order now settled by playground rules, the countdown to the double marathon weekend of 24 and 25 April 2027 has well and truly begun.
