Boston Marathon By The Numbers: 30K Runners, 28,200 Bananas
The Boston Marathon includes 26.2 miles, 34 elite athletes, 30,000 runners, 87 countries, 1 million spectators and $830,500 in prize money.
www.cbsnews.comI don’t currently have live access to up-to-the-minute sources, but here’s what’s widely reported about recent Boston Marathon field sizes.
- Typical field size in recent years: about 30,000 entrants, with roughly 28,800–29,000 starters and about 28,000 finishers in many editions. This aligns with numbers cited for the 2024–2025 events, which show entrants around 31,000–32,000 and starters just under 29,000 to 30,000 depending on the year and cancellations.[1][5][9]
- Variation by year: some years see higher entry pools (late 2020s surge in applications) but stricter qualification or entry allocations mean not all entrants start the race. Reports have noted approximately 30,000+ runners typically participate, with minor fluctuations in starters and finishers.[4][8][9]
- Recent trend: growth in qualifying and charity entries keeps the field around the 30k mark, even as the exact starter count can vary slightly year to year due to no-shows or late entries.[5][1]
If you’d like, I can pull the latest official figures and present them with exact numbers and a short comparison table.