The Abbott World Marathon Majors, who represent the six majors of Tokyo, Boston, London, Berlin, Chicago and New York, have announced its first global age group marathon ranking system and age group world championships.
So if you’re an oldie but a goodie, read on!
The initiative will kick off in September 2018 and the idea behind it, according to Tim Hadzima, AbbottWMM general manager, is “There has been huge growth in marathon age group running and now more than 125,000 runners aged 40+ participate in AbbottWMM races each year. Our series has celebrated the world’s best professional athletes for more than a decade and now it is time to formally celebrate the achievements of age group marathon runners and the truly inspiring stories of these everyday champions.”
The idea behind the initiative is that participants in an AbbottWMM Wanda Age Group World Ranking qualifying race will earn points according to their age, time and gender. The age groups will be:
40-44
45-49
50-54
55-59
60-64
65-69
70-74
75-79
80+
The initiative will run over a 12 month period, beginning with the Berlin Marathon in September 2018. Your best 2 results in qualifying marathons during this period will count towards your ranking. Then the top-ranked runners in each age group will qualify for the AbbottWMM Wanda Age Group World Championships in Spring 2020!
A full list of the qualifying can be viewed
here and a full explanation of the scoring system
here.
It’s a truly global list of races. There are 30 announced so far and, in addition to London, Liverpool has been added from the UK.
