Chicago Marathon: 2024 date, start time, how to watch, course, history, records

The fourth of the year’s six World Major marathons takes place this month with the Chicago Marathon and we have all you need to know about the big race in the Windy City.

Chicago Marathon 2024 date

The 2024 Chicago Marathon will take place on Sunday, October 13.

Chicago Marathon 2024 start time

The wheelchair races will start at 7:20 AM CT with the elite race starting at 7:30 AM CT, while the final corral of public participants starting their races at 8:35 AM CT.

How to watch the Chicago Marathon, TV channel and streaming

The Chicago Marathon will be screened live on local NBC, Telemundo and TeleXidos in English and Spanish with coverage starting at 7 AM CT local time, while those outlets also offer live streaming as do Roku and Apple TV.

Chicago Marathon course

The Chicago Marathon course, like all official marathon courses, will be 26.2 miles long.

The race, which has the fourth-highest number of competitors in any marathon, starts and finishes in Grant Park, which is located close to Soldier Field, home of the Chicago Bears NFL team, and it is renowned as a flat and fast course with an elevation gain of just 64 metres or 210 feet.

The run goes through 29 of the city’s neighbourhoods taking in many of the Windy City’s iconic landmarks and also runs along the shores of Lake Michigan.

It is a loop that can almost be divided into three sections with one of Chicago’s major spring venues near the course turning points.

They are Wrigley Field - home of the Chicago Cubs - to the north, the United Center where the Chicago Bulls play their home games to the west and Guaranteed Rate Field, the home of the Chicago White Sox to the south.

There is a gentle incline in the closing miles before reentry into the park along Michigan Avenue where any potential tiredness among the elite competitors could be exposed, but the course is considered less demanding than the other two USA Majors in New York, which takes place next month, and the iconic Boston Marathon, which is held in April.

Chicago Marathon history

The Chicago Marathon is one of the world’s six Majors alongside Berlin, London, Tokyo, Boston and New York and first took place in 1977.

It has been held in October since 1983 and the first six pairs of winners were American, but it was no surprise that the fast nature of the course soon attracted the best runners in the world to the banks of Lake Michigan.

Deena Kastor was the last home female winner in 2005 while Galen Rupp became the first American-born male winner for 35 years when he triumphed in 2017.

Moroccan-born Khalid Khannouchi has won the race four times and two of his successes came in 2000 and 2002 after he adopted American citizenship, having previously won under the flag of his birth in 1997 and 1999.

Great Britain’s Steve Jones became the first man to claim the world record on the Illinois course when he ran 2.08:05 and the other notable British success came in 2018 when four-time Olympic gold medalist Mo Farah captured what turned out to be his only World Major triumph.

The most celebrated marathon runner of all-time, Kenya’s Eluid Kipchoge, won the race in 2014 in a time of 2.04:11.

In the women’s race, the most memorable performance came in 2019 when Kenya’s Brigid Kosgei set a world best of 2.14:04, which beat the previous best in a mixed race that had been set by Paula Radcliffe in London 16 years earlier.

Dutch runner Sifan Hassan, who will not be running in the event this year, won 12 months ago in a time of 2.13:44 before she went on to win Olympic gold in Paris earlier this summer.

There will be a sombre mood surrounding this year’s men’s race after Kenya’s Kelvin Kiptum broke the world record with a time of 2.00:35.

It seemed that breaking the magic two-hour barrier, which had been done only by Kipchoge in non-race conditions in Vienna, was at his mercy, but Kiptum was killed in a car accident with his coach in his homeland in February at the age of just 24.

Chicago Marathon records

Men's course record - 2:00:35 (Kevin Kiptum, Kenya, 2023)

Women's course record - 2:13:44 (Sifan Hassan, Netherlands, 2023)

Men's wheelchair record - 1:25:20 (Marcel Hug, Switzerland, 2023)

Women's wheelchair record - 1:38:44 (Catherine Debrunner, Switzerland, 2023)