World Records
World Records (Marathons completed in Countries)
April 23, 2024
The core principles and bylaws of the Country Club require that all members recognize, respect and honor the accomplishments of our members and all runners. For this reason we believe it is important to recognize and record those achievements, many of which are ‘unofficial’ World Records. Although they may not be certified by Guinness World Records, they have been verified by the Country Club. However, it is the responsibility of all runners to keep and maintain their stats in case there may be a dispute.
Marathon running – and especially running marathons in countries - is changing rapidly. The Internet makes it simpler and easier to find and register for marathons. Clubs such as ours make it simpler and easier to find runners to participate in a new or club marathon in a country that had no official marathon. And now Adventure Tour operators are organizing tours with multiple events in a short period! None of these benefits existed for our pioneer runners. Prior to the Internet, it was difficult to find marathons and impossible to find other runners with similar interests to organize a marathon in a new country. Thus we must recognize how much more difficult it was for our pioneer runners and respect and honor the accomplishments of those pioneer runners even though they may not comply with many of the new guidelines and rules that exist today!
The categories listed below are not all-inclusive. Other categories may be suggested for consideration. Runners may submit their stats and lists for verification and inclusion in these categories. Categories will be limited to five entries initially.
Most No of Countries Completed
Brent Weigner 196 Jan 28, 2024
Klaus Westphal 171 Jul 30, 2023
Wojciech Machnik 152 Feb 17, 2024
Yen Nguyen 143 May 27, 2023
Janos Kis 141 Jan 20, 2023
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John Wallace 132 Apr 08, 2017
Wally Herman 099 Mar 05, 2006
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Chronological History of the World Record for the Most No of Countries completed.
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Wally Herman 30 May 27, 1989
Wally Herman 99 Mar 05, 2006
John Wallace 100 Feb 07, 2009
John Wallace 132 Apr 08, 2017
Brent Weigner 133 Jun 18, 2017
Brent Weigner 137 Jul 31, 2017
Klaus Westphal 138 Aug 05, 2017
Klaus Westphal 139 Aug 19, 2017
Brent Weigner 140 Sep 12, 2017
Runners completing 100 Countries
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This category provides a historical record of runners and the date they completed 100 countries.
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John Wallace Feb 07, 2009
Klaus Westphal Sep 27, 2015
Brent Weigner Feb 14, 2016
Edson Sanches Sep 17, 2016
Peter Bennett Nov 13, 2016
Yen Nguyen Nov 13, 2016
Rich Holmes Jun 18, 2017
Janos Kis Aug 02, 2017
Giuseppe Raguso Aug 29, 2018
Tenho Lauri Sep 16, 2018
Juergen Kuhlmey Nov 25, 2018
Edit Kiss Dec 01, 2018
Dieter Elster May 04, 2019
Dan Micola Aug 5, 2019
Vagn Kirkelund Jan 14, 2020
Lichu Sloan Feb 23, 2020
Wojciech Machnik Aug 14, 2021
Philippe Waroux Oct 17, 2021
Mario Sagasser Mar 24, 2024
Deborah Lazerson Apr 21, 2024
Most No of Countries completed in 1 year
Wojciech Machnik 67 Dec 07, 2019
Dan Micola 58 Jan 14, 2018
Tristan Miller 42 Dec 27, 2010
Brent Weigner 37 Dec 17, 2017
Anders Forselius 33 Apr 06, 2014
John Wallace 31 May 21, 2000
Tad Lancucki 15 May 15, 1999
Wally Herman 12 Oct 25, 1987
Most No of Capital Cities completed
Brent Weigner 105 May 20, 2023
Yen Nguyen 95 May 27, 2023
Peter Bennett 92 Sep 04, 2021
Klaus Westphal 91 Jul 30, 2023
Dieter Elster 87 Mar 17, 2024
John Wallace 78 Feb 02, 2016
Wally Herman 61 Mar 06, 2006
Most No of Countries completed in Europe
Jurgen Sinthofen 56 Dec 02, 2017
John Wallace 55 May 25, 2014
Mario Sagasser 55 Jan 19, 2019
Jaap Van de Berg 55 Jan 19, 2019
Janos Kis 55 Jan 19, 2019
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Wally Herman 44 Jul 17, 2004
Tad Lancucki 43 Aug 30, 2009
Most No of Countries completed in North America
Brent Weigner 32 May 20, 2023
Klaus Westphal 26 Jun 18, 2022
Wojtek Machnik 24 Jan 14, 2024
Rich Holmes 23 Mar 13, 2019
John Wallace 22 Feb 02, 2017
Yen Nguyen 22 Jun 18, 2022
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Wally Herman 16 Mar 29, 2000
Most No of Countries completed in South America
Brent Weigner 16 Jun 03, 2018
Dieter Elster 15 Mar 17, 2024
John Wallace 13 Nov 14, 2015
Peter Bennett 13 Nov 18, 2018
Yen Nguyen 13 Nov 18, 2018
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Wally Herman 08 Oct 27, 1996
Most No of Countries completed in Oceania
Brent Weigner 13 Jul 21, 2023
John Wallace 9 Apr 08, 2017
Dieter Elster 9 Jul 30, 2023
Wally Herman 8 Jul 27, 1999
Peter Bennett 8 Aug 27, 2017
Yen Nguyen 8 Aug 27, 2017
Wojtek Machnik 8 Aug 27, 2023
Most No of Countries completed in Asia
Brent Weigner 45 Jan 20, 2023
Klaus Westphal 42 Jan 05, 2023
Janos Kis 42 Jan 20, 2023
Wojtek Machnik 40 Feb 17, 2024
Yen Nguyen 32 Apr 25, 2022
Dieter Elster 32 Apr 17, 2024
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John Wallace 25 Dec 16, 2016
Wally Herman 16 Mar 05, 2006
Most No of Countries completed in Africa
Brent Weigner 37 Jan 11, 2024
Klaus Westphal 27 Aug 21, 2022
Dieter Elster 26 Jun 04, 2023
Wojtek Machnik 23 Nov 03, 2023
Dayo Akinbode 21 Nov 03, 2022
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Wally Herman 07 Feb 26, 2001
Most No of Countries in the Alphabet (English spelling, max 25 since no country starts with ‘X’)
Wally Herman 25 Oct 31, 1999
Jurgen Sinthofen 25 Mar 12, 2020
Brent Weigner 25 Mar 12, 2020
Dan Micola 25 Mar 12, 2020
Wojciech Machnik 25 Sep 11, 2021
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Continents Completed (Completed a marathon in all countries on a continent - limited to 10 entries)
Antarctica
Harry Johnson Jan 1995 Anthony Slavic Jan 1995
Todd Henry Jan 1995 Gerald Radlauer Jan 1995
Joe Schroeder Jan 1995 Sam Shirey Jan 1995
Bob Cowdy Jan 1995 Bill Galbrecht Jan 1995
John Bozung Jan 1995 Whiney Kemper Jan 1995
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Wally Herman Jan 1995
John Wallace Feb 1997
Tad Lancucki Feb 1999
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Europe
John Wallace May 2014 Unto Peltoniemi Jan 2019
Jurgen Sinthofen Dec 2017 Doris Sagasser Jan 2019
Mario Sagasser Jan 2019 Brent Weigner May 2019
Jaap Van de Berg Jan 2019 Klaus Westphal Sep 2022
Janos Kis Jan 2019 Vagn Kirkelund Oct 2022
South America
Brent Weigner Jun 2018
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North America
Brent Weigner May 20, 2023
Couples Categories
Most No of Countries completed
Peter Bennett & Yen Nguyen 140 & 143
Janos Kis & Edit Kiss 141 & 116
Mario & Doris Sagasser 100 & 96
Dave & Linda Major 64 & 56
Juhani & Maria Aho 55 & 43
Enzo Torti & Daniela Gallia 38 & 40
Christian & Marjorie Di Domenico 32
Martin Geicsnek &
Helga Marwan-Schlosser 42 & 41
Unto & Outi Peltoniemi 88 & 30
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Guidelines for counting Capital Cities, Countries & Continents
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Check the Approved Countries page for the list of countries approved by the Country Club and the continent that they are considered to be part of and also the capital city.
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Capital Cities
If a marathon starts, finishes or passes through a capital city it counts!
Typically a runner will count the first & only marathon run in a country for that country. It may not include the capital city? However, if a runner completes another marathon in that country and it does include the capital city, it can count for the capital city. However the Principle Rule must be complied to: a Country and a Capital City can only be counted ONCE! The Approved Countries page also lists the capital cities of all approved countries.
President’s Comments on the World Records List (Oct 22, 2015)
Thanks to runners all over the world who submitted stats for the World Records List. I believe that the World Records List is now fairly stable, accurate, and representative of the records and achievements of runners in our Sport.
I am pleased and proud that our Club is able to provide this important historical record for runners in our Sport. I am very happy and proud that the World Records List remembers and honors pioneer runners in our Sport. For example, Wally Herman, one of the true pioneers of our Sport, still holds two World Records! Wally’s WR of running 25 countries of the alphabet (set in Oct 1999) lasted for 21 years! Wally was fortunate to run Yugoslavia. I did not believe that WR would be broken or matched in my lifetime but thanks to the efforts of an Adventure Tour Company owned by a CC member, a one-of marathon was organized in Yemen in Mar 2020 allowing a few runners to tie Wally's WR.
Another exciting and important benefit of the World Records List is that it provides an incentive and challenge - along with specific records - for runners in our Sport to break. It is inevitable that most of these WRs will be broken (some many times over) in the next few decades due to the growing popularity of our Sport and many more marathons and countries to run than any time in the past.
It is important that the World Records List be maintained as a historical record of our Sport.
In effort to ensure the history of our Sport is preserved the personal records of one of the pioneer runners of our Sport is used as a baseline in each category. Wally Herman is recognized as a true pioneer of our Sport. He established WRs for every category listed in the World Records List long before our Sport was even a Sport! In many categories his WR still ranks in the top five – and in those categories where his WR has been broken many times, his previous WR is listed as a baseline. This provides an interesting and historical insight into his amazing records and achievements. It is interesting to compare the records of pioneer runners with current WRs while keeping in mind that it was difficult to find marathons and many countries did not offer marathons – “in the old days”!