Percentage of Marathon finishers

Does anyone know what percentage of people who enter a marathon actually finish it?

My absolute guess would be 80 - 90 %.......?

(of course assuming 'normal' weather, etc.)

No, but here's a way you could figure out a pretty good estimate for yourself: just divide the cap on the NYC marathon into the number of finishers in a given year. (Or similarly for any other major marathon.)

Of course some registrants don't start, but I'll bet that percentage is small, given the price of marathons these days.

Ah, to heck with it. It just took me 5 seconds to do a web search. Here's the report on the 2000 Huntsville marathon, which reports that 93% of all starters finished:
http://www.al.com/sports/huntsville/Dec2000/16- e14879.html

Exercise: find out what percentage of registrants don't start and see if my claim above was correct. Report back to us for extra credit.

Depends on the race. Paris Marathon 2000 had 27799 people at the start, 27596 completed the course. So that is 99%+.

Other marathons probably have worse completion ratio.

For what it is worth, here are actual hard numbers from the Florida Gulf Beaches Marathon, held in late January:

First year (2000): 601 Entrants, 523 Starters, 474 Finishers (90.6%), 144 First Time Starters, 107 First Time Finishers, 61 Qualified for Boston (12.8%). Also had 34 Relay runners = 635 total entrants.

Second Year (2001): 1,023 Entrants, 915 Starters, 827 Finishers (90.3%), 200 First Time Starters, 179 First Time Finishers, 113 Qualified for Boston (13.6%). Also had 506 relay runners = 1,529 total entrants.

Somewhere in my on-line research, I saw a statement that, on average, 80-85% of entrants actually finish, which my two year history falls within.

Hope this helps and would also be curious to see more responses with exact info.

Chris Lauber Race Director Florida Gulf Beaches Marathon