Athletics at the 2020 Summer Olympics – Men's marathon

This will be the 29th appearance of the event, which is one of 12 athletics events to have been held at every Summer Olympics.

A National Olympic Committee (NOC) could enter up to 3 qualified athletes in the men's marathon if all athletes meet the entry standard or qualify by ranking during the qualifying period. (The limit of 3 has been in place since the 1930 Olympic Congress.) The qualifying standard is 2:11:30. This standard was "set for the sole purpose of qualifying athletes with exceptional performances unable to qualify through the IAAF World Rankings pathway." Runners in the top 10 at the 2019 world championship, the top 5 at any IAAF Gold Label marathon, and the top 10 at the Marathon Major Series were deemed to have met the qualifying standard, regardless of actual time. The world rankings, based on the average of the best five results for the athlete over the qualifying period and weighted by the importance of the meet, will then be used to qualify athletes until the cap of 80 is reached.[2][3] More than 80 athletes (after application of the 3 per NOC rule) have met the qualifying standard.

To be a qualifying performance, the course had to have been certified in the last five years by a Grade A or Grade B road course measurer. In order to be eligible for the qualifying standard time, the elevation decrease could not be more than 1 metre per kilometre. For world rankings, the elevation decrease could exceed that rate, but a correction would be made to the score.[2]

The qualifying period was originally from 1 January 2019 to 31 May 2020. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the period was suspended from 6 April 2020 to 30 November 2020, with the end date extended to 31 May 2021. The world rankings period start date was also changed from 1 January 2019 to 1 December 2018. The qualifying time standards could be obtained in various meets during the given period that have the approval of the IAAF. The most recent Area Championships may be counted in the ranking, even if not during the qualifying period.[2][4] In July 2020, World Athletics announced that the suspension period would be lifted for the road events (marathons and race walks) on 1 September 2020.[5]

NOCs can also use their universality place—each NOC can enter one male athlete regardless of time if they had no male athletes meeting the entry standard for an athletics event—in the marathon.[2]

As all Olympic marathons, the competition will be a single race. The marathon distance of 26 miles, 385 yards will be run over a course that starts with two laps around Odori Park. The route then includes a large loop (about half the marathon's length) through the streets of Sapporo, passing by Nakajima Park, Sapporo TV Tower, and Hokkaido University, and crossing the Toyohira River twice. The course then takes two trips around a smaller (approximately 10 kilometres) section of the large loop. The finish line is back at Odori Park.[6]

Prior to this competition, the existing world, Olympic, and area records are as follows.

World record	Eliud Kipchoge (KEN)	2:01:39	Berlin, Germany	16 September 2018
Olympic record	Samuel Wanjiru (KEN)	2:06:32	Beijing, China	24 August 2008

Area	Time	Athlete	Nation
Africa (records)	2:01:39 WR	Eliud Kipchoge	Kenya
Asia (records)	2:04:43	El Hassan El-Abbassi	Bahrain
Europe (records)	2:04:16	Kaan Kigen Özbilen	Turkey
North, Central America and Caribbean (records)	2:05:38	Khalid Khannouchi	United States
Oceania (records)	2:07:51*	Robert de Castella	Australia
South America (records)	2:06:05	Ronaldo da Costa	Brazil

* — Boston Marathon, aided road course per IAAF rule 260.28

All times are Japan Standard Time (UTC+9)