2012 Olympic Marathon Course

The 2012 Olympic Marathon Course is that of both the men's and women's marathon races at the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games in London.

The 42.195-kilometre (26.219-mile) route consists of one short circuit of 3.571 kilometres (2.219 miles) followed by three circuits of 12.875 kilometres (8.0 miles). The course, which was designed to pass many of London's well-known landmarks, starts and finishes on The Mall, within sight of Buckingham Palace, and extends as far as the Tower of London in the east and the Victoria Memorial in the west.

The route of the marathon had been changed, for various logistical reasons, from that originally envisaged in London's original 2005 bid for the Games and broke with the normal Olympic tradition that the race finishes inside the main Olympic Stadium.

The 2012 Summer Olympics was the third to be held in London. The stated distance of the marathon at the London 1908 Summer Olympics – 26 miles and 385 yards, later converted to metric units as 42.195 kilometres – formed the basis of the standard distance adopted by International Association of Athletics Federations in 1921.

The route, as confirmed in October 2010, starts on The Mall about 350 metres from the Victoria Memorial and has four laps, finishing at the start point. It follows the Victoria Embankment towards the City of London where it takes a winding route and continues eastwards to Tower Hill. At this point there is a U-turn and the route heads westwards, again using the Embankment as far as the Palace of Westminster and thence back to The Mall. The last three laps are identical and are exactly 8 miles (12.875 km) each. The first lap, which only incorporates the south-western section of the route, is 2 miles 385 yards (3.571 km) long.

A summary of the course and associated distance points is given below:

Runner's World described the course as "picturesque" as well as "labyrinthine", noting that included among the 111 turns or bends are four U-turns.

The marathon route starts part way along The Mall and, heading away from Buckingham Palace proceeds through Admiralty Arch and past Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square. A slight turn to the right onto Northumberland Avenue which drops down to near river-level over a distance of 350 metres (a little under a quarter of a mile). On the first lap the runners turn right and continue along the Victoria Embankment, on subsequent laps they turn left and pass under the Hungerford Bridge and follow the River Thames on its downstream path. The Embankment is the longest "straight" stretch in the race, about 1,500 m (nearly a mile) on the outbound leg and 2,100 m on the return leg. It leads the runners past Cleopatra's Needle and the heraldic lions that symbolically defend the limits of the City of London.