NINETY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS OF SEOUL
The Race That Outlasted an Empire
In 1931, 14 runners lined up on a looped course through the Youngdungpo district of Seoul. The distance was roughly 23 kilometers, not a full marathon. The sponsor was a newspaper, The Dong-A Ilbo, and the winner was a local named Kim Eun-Bae. Nobody outside Korea noticed.
That race, modest as it was, planted the seed for what is now the Seoul International Marathon, the oldest continuously held marathon in Asia and one of just three races to receive the World Athletics Heritage Plaque alongside Boston and Athens. The Seoul Marathon is a race forged by colonial resistance, war, Olympic glory, and a running culture that now packs 40,000 people onto a course stretching from Gwanghwamun Square to the 1988 Olympic Stadium at Jamsil.
Its history reads less like a sporting timeline and more like a mirror of Korea itself.
A Runner, a Flag, and a Suspended Newspaper
The Youngdungpo Marathon grew quickly through the 1930s, and it produced talent that reached the world stage. Kim and the 1933 winner, Sohn Kee-chung, both went on to compete at the Olympics. But Korea was under Japanese occupation, so they ran under the Japanese flag and Japanese names. Sohn entered the Olympic register as Kitei Son.
At the 1936 Berlin Games, Sohn won the marathon in 2:29:19, setting an Olympic record. His teammate Nam Sung-yong took bronze. On the medal podium, both men bowed their heads during the Japanese national anthem. Sohn later said the gesture was deliberate, a quiet act of protest against the occupation of their homeland.
Back in Seoul, The Dong-A Ilbo published photos of Sohn's victory but airbrushed the Japanese flag off his jersey. The colonial government retaliated by shutting down the newspaper and suspending the race. There was no 1937 edition.
The race returned from 1938 to 1940, then disappeared again, first because of World War II and then the Korean War. When it finally came back in April 1954, more than two decades of disruption had passed. Im Jong-Woo became the first repeat champion, winning in 1954 and 1955, and the marathon settled into a steady annual rhythm for the first time.
Women Enter, Records Fall
For its first 50 years, the race was men-only. That changed in 1981 when Im Eun-Joo won a women's 30-kilometer race held alongside the main event. The following year, women got to run the full marathon distance. Im Eun-Joo went on to claim three consecutive titles from 1983 to 1985, establishing herself as the race's first great female champion.
Through the 1980s, the men's field pushed the course record into 2:12 territory. Jang-hee Lee ran 2:12 in 1987, and by 1990 Won-Tak Kim had brought it down to 2:11:38 while winning the Asian Marathon Championship, which Seoul hosted within the race that year.
These were respectable times, competitive by Asian standards. But they still placed Seoul well outside the global elite. The race remained a largely domestic affair, dominated by Korean and Japanese runners, with little international visibility.
Seoul 1988 and the Olympic Shadow
The 1988 Summer Olympics changed everything for Seoul, if not immediately for the marathon itself.
On October 2, 1988, the Olympic men's marathon started and finished at Jamsil Olympic Stadium, the same venue that now serves as the Seoul Marathon's finish line. Italy's Gelindo Bordin won gold in 2:10:32, holding off Kenya's Douglas Wakiihuri and Djibouti's Ahmed Salah in a tightly contested final three kilometers. The conditions were brutal: 24 degrees Celsius, 74 percent humidity, and full sun.
The Olympic marathon put Seoul on the global running map, but the annual Seoul Marathon took longer to capitalize. It stayed largely domestic through the early 1990s, even as it produced a runner who would make Olympic history of his own.
Hwang Young-cho won the Seoul Marathon in 1991, only his second career marathon. A year later, he traveled to Barcelona and won Olympic gold, becoming the second Korean to win the event after Sohn Kee-chung 56 years earlier. It was poetic symmetry. Where Sohn had been forced to wear a Japanese uniform, Hwang ran proudly under the Korean flag.
Going International
The race opened its doors to foreign competitors in 1994, rebranding as the Dong-A International Marathon. Portugal's Manuel Matias became the first non-Korean, non-Japanese winner, and the shift was underway.
Lee Bong-ju, perhaps the most decorated Korean marathoner of his generation, won the race in 1995 and went on to claim Olympic silver in Atlanta in 1996, back-to-back Asian Games gold medals in 1998 and 2002, and the 2001 Boston Marathon title. His national record of 2:07:20, set in Tokyo in 2000, stood for years as the benchmark for Korean distance running.
But as the 2000s progressed, East African runners increasingly dominated the Seoul field. South Africa's Gert Thys won back-to-back editions in 2003 and 2004, recording 2:07:06 in the latter. Kenya's Sylvester Teimet dropped the men's record to 2:06:49 in 2010. Two years later, Wilson Loyanae ran 2:05:37.
The women's records followed a similar trajectory. China's Wei Yanan set a 2:25:06 course best in 2002, and Zhou Chunxiu later pushed the mark down to 2:19:51, becoming just the seventh woman in history to break 2:20 at the time.
The Modern Era and Platinum Status
The Seoul Marathon moved to its current point-to-point course layout in the early 2010s, starting at Gwanghwamun Square in the heart of the city and finishing inside the Olympic Stadium at Jamsil. Runners pass Gyeongbokgung Palace, the statue of Admiral Yi Sun-sin, the ancient Namdaemun gate, and Cheonggyecheon stream before crossing the Han River toward the stadium. It is one of the most scenic urban marathon routes in the world, weaving through centuries of Korean history on every kilometer.
In 2019, World Athletics awarded the Seoul Marathon its Heritage Plaque, placing it alongside Boston and Athens as one of the sport's landmark events. The race also holds World Athletics Platinum Label status, the highest designation available.
The course records took another leap in 2022. Ethiopia's Mosinet Geremew ran 2:04:43 to set the current men's mark, and Romania's Joan Chelimo Melly clocked 2:18:04 for the women's record. Both times represented significant jumps, Geremew taking nearly a full minute off the previous best.
Since then, the race has continued to attract top East African talent. Amdework Walelegn won in 2:05:27 in 2023. Jemal Yimer took the 2024 edition in 2:06:08. And in 2025, Haftu Teklu crossed the line in 2:05:42, continuing Ethiopia's dominance of the men's field — a streak that extended dramatically in 2026.
The women's race has seen its own compelling storylines. Jeong Daeun delivered a hometown triumph in 2023 with a 2:28:32 effort, a meaningful result for Korean fans hungry for a domestic contender. Ethiopian runners Fikrte Wereta (2:21:32 in 2024) and Bekelech Borecha (2:21:36 in 2025) have otherwise kept the top step.
A Nation of Runners
Korea's relationship with running has transformed dramatically in recent years. The number of marathon events held across South Korea exploded from 19 in 2020 to 254 in 2024, drawing more than one million participants. Seoul alone hosted 118 running events in 2024. The running boom, fueled partly by the COVID-19 pandemic when other social sports were restricted, has turned Seoul's streets into a near-constant parade of weekend races.
The Seoul Marathon itself now attracts roughly 40,000 participants, blending its elite competition with a massive citizen race. The Seoul Metropolitan Government co-sponsors the event alongside The Dong-A Ilbo, which has backed the race since 1931. That continuity of sponsorship, spanning nearly a century, is itself a record of sorts.
But the growth has created friction. Seoul residents have complained about road closures nearly every weekend, and city officials are navigating the tension between a fitness culture that shows no signs of slowing and the practical demands of a metropolis of 10 million.
From Youngdungpo to the World
The Seoul Marathon has endured colonial suppression, two wars, and decades of relative obscurity. It has produced Olympic champions and hosted the world's fastest marathoners. It has evolved from a 23-kilometer newspaper publicity stunt into a World Athletics Platinum Label race where course records fall in the 2:04 range.
Through it all, the thread connecting 1931 to today is the same one Sohn Kee-chung pulled taut on that Berlin podium: running in Korea has never been just about running. It has always carried the weight of national identity, persistence, and quiet defiance. Ninety-five years later, the streets of Seoul still tell that story every March.