2012 Olympic Marathon Course 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
Athletics at the 1908 Summer Olympics – Men's marathon before the Games opened it was realised that the Royal Entrance could not be used as the marathon entrance—it was raised to permit easy descent by the royal party from their carriages, and did not open onto the track—so an alternative entrance was chosen, diagonally opposite the Royal Box. A special path was made from Du Cane Road running due south just east of the Franco British Exhibition ground so that the distance from Windsor to the stadium remained "about 26 miles". The finishing line was left unchanged, but in order that more of the spectators would have a good