The AbbottWMM Six Star Hall of Fame grew to more than 20,000 following the 2025 Tokyo Marathon.
Runners poured across the finish line close to the Imperial Palace in bright sunshine to begin the Majors season for the year. Among them were over 2,300 new Six Star Finishers ready to claim their medals.
Tokyo regularly accounts for the highest number of Six Star finishers among the Majors, setting a Guinness World Record of more than 3,000 in 2023, and again posted a huge number of athletes completing their journey this year, with emotional scenes as runners lines up to receive the medal they had worked for years to earn.
"I cried when I crossed the line!
Tears of happiness and accomplishment."
Among them was Maria Karabova from Slovakia, who finished in 3:29:45.
"I'm finally finished!" she said. "I started in 2019 in New York City and I've done one each year since then, so I'm very proud that I managed to finish in six years.
"I have a very busy job and training is very limited but I'm very happy that my employer allowed me to participate this year so I could complete my dream. I cried when I crossed the line! Tears of happiness and accomplishment."
Jochum Wiersma from the Netherlands also completed his journey and pledged to add to the tattoo collection on his calf muscles - which currently display the other five Majors.
"But I now have a major problem," he said, after clocking 3:38.00.
"Since you guys added the seventh (Sydney), I want to know where I am going to put it! I got lucky and got in through the lottery so I'll see you in August."
Both runners have now set their sights on the next milestone. With Cape Town and Shanghai in the candidacy process to join Sydney and take the series to nine races, the Nine Star medal will be the next piece of hardware to aim for.
"If it's a Major, I'll do it," said Jochum.
Official results will be supplied to AbbottWMM in the coming days. Once processed, they will appear in runners' portals and emails will be sent as confirmation.
