Makda Harun raced to a course record victory in the Sydney marathon on Sunday, while Shota Hattori overtook Werkunesh Seyoum close to the finish line to make it a hat-trick of wins for Japan in the men’s division of this IAAF Gold Label Road race.

Sometimes the winner of a marathon emerges so emphatically in the final stages that you wonder why you never rated them for the first 40 kilometres. Other times the champion is obvious from the start. There was one of both types as Tomohiro Tanigawa and Makda Harun raced to victory in the Blackmores Sydney Marathon, an IAAF Gold Label race, on Sunday (18).

After waiting more than 30 years to see Robert de Castella’s Australian all-comers record taken down, the Gold Coast Airport marathon on Sunday (5) could see the fastest men’s time ever run on Australian soil for the second successive year.

The elite field of the Dbam O Zdrowie Lodz Marathon this Sunday (20) includes only one previous winner of the IAAF Silver Label Road Race, but is nonetheless the deepest ever in the history of the event.

The 33rd Beijing International Marathon, an IAAF Gold Label Road Race, sees a strong line-up in the men’s race with hopes that the long-standing course record by Ethiopia’s Abebe Mekonnen, which has celebrated 25 years as the best mark in the Chinese capital, will be challenged on Sunday morning (20).

Former European cross-country champion Hilda Kibet tops the list of female entrants for the ABN-AMRO Marathon Rotterdam, an IAAF Gold Label Road Race, on 14 April.