Tokyo Marathon

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The youngest of the Majors and the first outside Europe and North America. It was first run on 18 February 2007, replacing the elite men-only Tokyo International Marathon that had been held since 1981 and consolidating it with a mass public race; Daniel Njenga and Hitomi Niiya were the first winners. It joined the World Marathon Majors for the 2013 series, its first race as a Major being on 24 February 2013. The course starts outside the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building in Shinjuku and, since a redesign first used in 2017, finishes near Tokyo Station on Gyoko-dori rather than on the hilly, exposed waterfront leg it used before. The redesign cut turns and gradient and made the course markedly faster while keeping it inside the record-eligibility limits — a rare case of a city rebuilding its race explicitly to produce fast times.