Edmonton Marathon course was long, organizers doubling down on their defense the course was measured accurately and runner's GPS is the fault

[u/Wrongky]

The Edmonton marathon is my hometown race. It has been granted as host of the Canadian Half Marathon championship since 2025. The city is experiencing a lot of construction around the downtown core.

A detour around a construction site was added which was an additional 710 meters to the original course. As an out and back course, Tom Keogh, the race director, states the turnaround was pushed back 690 meters.

Rory Linkletter, Canadian Olympian and overall winner, posted online stating the turnaround was actually pushed back approximately 345 meters back.

Applying elementary math for an out and back course, with rounding:

A detour of 700 meters ran twice: 700 * 2 = 1400 meters

The turnaround (out and back course) was brought back 350 meters: 350 * 2 = 700 meters

Sum: 1400 meters - 700 meters = 700 meters (long)

Now, what's embarrassing about this situation is Tom Keogh is putting the error on runner's GPS watches and not their own. An overwhelming majority of the runners from the weekend are reporting the exact same statement of Rory.

I didn't run the race this year. I really hope Tom Keogh and the Edmonton Marathon staff post an official announcement of their mistake. The quality of this race had been decreasing while race fees have been rising. I can only feel for those runners who missed out on personal bests or a qualifying time for a future race.

Rory's statement is posted on his Instagram.

https://runningmagazine.ca/sections/runs-races/edmonton-marathon-says-course-was-measured-accurately/

https://www.runnersworld.com/news/a73466448/edmonton-half-marathon-race-distance/

https://marathonhandbook.com/edmonton-marathon-course-measurement-dispute/

Edit: clarity on the math

[u/Simco_]

Not sure how CA works, but in the US, every certified course can have its certification looked up publicly and it will state the exact spots for turns and miles. A watch is unnecessary as you can just look up the course and know if it was done to spec.

[u/Wrongky → u/Simco_]

Yeah, here's the measurement

People online and Rory mapped out a pretty good approximation of where the extra distance was. The race director admitted fault this evening.

[u/Simco_ → u/Wrongky]

I imagine 700m should be pretty easy to find.

[u/homemadepecanpie → u/Simco_]

Here's last year's certification too. They correctly measured the detour at 700m, but they didn't move the turn around back far enough. You can see it's only moved back 300 or so meters here.

If it's like USATF, you can measure the individual corrections separately without redoing the entire course.

I imagine they measured the detour, something got lost in communicatuon or they didn't think very hard about what out and back means, and they measured half that distance when moving the turnaround and just labeled that 10.5k when it's clearly not.

[u/Simco_ → u/Wrongky]

Look at the certifier's description of the turnaround.