Brown Family Sports · course analysis
2026 Servus Edmonton Half Marathon · 16 August 2026 · what the organiser published, what was certified, and what my watch recorded
Credit where due: this mechanism was first argued publicly by Rory Linkletter — who won the race and titled his Strava upload “21.1 + 800m” — in an Instagram reel and a thread on X: a ~700 m construction detour was meant to be offset by repositioning the turnaround, but the turnaround came back roughly half as far as it needed to. Every number in that claim checks out against the primary documents. What follows is the independent verification — none of it sourced from the reel — and as of the evening of August 18 it is no longer a hypothesis: the organisers have admitted it (their number: +674.7 m; ours, derived first: +683 m).
“Updated statement” from race director Tom Keogh, emailed to registered participants and received directly by this author. Reproduced in full:
The Edmonton Marathon’s previous statement detailing confidence in the course certification process was issued with the best information it had at the time. Since then, and after receiving notes from participants, including elite athletes that the course ran longer than its certified distance, we undertook a detailed review of the physical measurement of the certified course. That review has identified an error in how this year’s detour related course adjustments were calculated and for that we sincerely apologize. The additional distance added for the Wellington Bridge detour was partially offset with adjustments made to the course’s west end turnaround point. Upon review it was determined that the turnaround point did not fully offset the addition of the detour, which resulted in a net increase to the distance of the half marathon and marathon courses of 674.7m.
The event owns this error, and we take full responsibility. We appreciate the many participants who have emailed and the ones that we have followed up with to have additional conversations. While we pursued the highest level of professional course measurement and certification available, an error occurred.
We do not take this lightly. We understand that every participant arrives at the start line having invested months of dedicated training, hard work, courage and deeply held goals. We also understand we hosted the nation’s best athletes and their finishing times did not truly reflect their amazing performances. We also understand the connection this event has with our city and its pride in delivering exceptional world class events.
The integrity of the course distance is fundamental and we acknowledge that we did not deliver the standard participants deserved. We recognize many participants ran qualifying times for future races, including Boston. We are working directly with Athletics Canada and other relevant partners to determine how this year’s results can be recognized.
Moving ahead, we will review our certification processes with our partners and ensure this error does not happen again.
We thank everyone for their patience as we work through this and anyone with specific questions or concerns is encouraged to contact the Edmonton Marathon directly at info@edmontonmarathon.ca
Tom Keogh, Race Director, Edmonton Marathon
*Note: The 10km event was not professionally certified with physical measurement and not part of this statement.
The 2025 course is the trusted baseline. Certificate CAN-2025-056 was genuinely measured by bicycle on 2025-06-08 (LaMontagne & Zimmerman) and — unlike the 2026 papers — publishes its full per-kilometre GPS waypoint table. That course ran straight along 102 Av and turned at 87 Av × 138 St (Buena Vista Rd), at exactly 10,584 m.
The 2026 course changed twice. From the organiser's own map data and the 2026 certificate sheet: (1) a jog off 102 Av up to 104 Av and back — leaving 102 Av about 4.1 km into the course, 910 m of detour replacing 256 m of straight road, i.e. +654 m each way, +1308 m in total; and (2) the turnaround pulled back from Buena Vista to Valleyview Cres — by ~312 m along the route (two independent estimates: 293 m from the certificate's own waypoint symmetry, 331 m from the organiser's drawn 2025 line).
The rule that makes this a blunder rather than a judgment call: on an out-and-back, moving the turnaround one metre closer removes two metres of course — a metre you no longer run out, and a metre you no longer run back. Absorbing a 654 m-each-way detour therefore requires pulling the turn back the full 654 m. It was pulled back ~312 m — half — which is precisely the number you get if you treat the detour as something run once.
This is the part that removes all doubt. The 2025 certificate publishes GPS coordinates for every kilometre mark of the old course. Most of that course is unchanged in 2026, so my watch should pass each surviving waypoint at its certified distance — and where the course changed, the difference should jump by a predictable amount, in a stairstep: 0 before the detour → +654 after it → +654 − 624 = ~+30 after the shortened turnaround → +683 once the detour is crossed again on the way home. Here is every waypoint:
| 2025 waypoint | certified at | my watch | difference | predicted |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1km | 1,000 | 997 | -3 | 0 |
| 2km | 2,000 | 1,999 | -1 | 0 |
| 3km | 3,000 | 3,002 | +2 | 0 |
| 4km | 4,000 | 4,000 | 0 | 0 |
| 5km | 5,000 | 5,641 | +641 | +654 |
| 6km | 6,000 | 6,655 | +655 | +654 |
| 7km | 7,000 | 7,685 | +685 | +654 |
| 8km | 8,000 | 8,695 | +695 | +654 |
| 9km | 9,000 | 9,706 | +706 | +654 |
| 10km * | 10,000 | 10,738 | +738 | +654 |
| 11km * | 11,000 | 10,852 | -148 | +29 |
| 12km | 12,000 | 12,134 | +134 | +29 |
| 13km | 13,000 | 13,150 | +150 | +29 |
| 14km | 14,000 | 14,158 | +158 | +29 |
| 15km * | 15,000 | 14,399 | -601 | +29 |
| 16km | 16,000 | 16,186 | +186 | +29 |
| 17km | 17,000 | 17,852 | +852 | +683 |
| 18km | 18,000 | 18,847 | +847 | +683 |
| 19km * | 19,000 | 19,846 | +846 | +683 |
| 20km | 20,000 | 20,843 | +843 | +683 |
| 21km | 21,000 | 21,847 | +847 | +683 |
* Four greyed rows sit inside the changed turnaround zone, on a divided roadway, or carry a scan-transcription doubt — flagged in the archived data, not silently dropped. The old Buena Vista turn point itself is 206 m from anywhere I ran: the 2026 course simply never goes there. Differences above prediction grow slightly with distance — that is ordinary GPS over-read (~0.7% for my watch), visible as the drift within each flat step.
The extra distance appears exactly where the course changed, and nowhere else. Kilometres 1–4: dead on. The jump to +641 happens precisely across the detour. The drop at the turnaround gives back ~620 m. The second crossing of the detour adds it again. No other reading of this table exists.
A half marathon has to be exactly 21.0975 km. Someone proves it by riding the route on a bicycle with a counting wheel, and a certificate gets issued. That happened here — in 2025. The 2025 ride is real, documented, and it even published the GPS location of every kilometre mark.
Then, for 2026, construction closed part of the route. The fix: go around the closed bit (which makes the course longer), and move the turnaround point closer (which makes it shorter). Do both by the right amounts and the course is still exactly 21.0975 km.
Here's the catch. This course is an out-and-back — you run every road twice, once out, once home. The detour around the construction gets run twice, so it adds 1308 m. But moving the turnaround closer also counts twice — a metre you don't run out is also a metre you don't run back. So to cancel a 654 m detour, the turnaround had to move 654 m. It moved about 312 m — half as far as it needed to. Exactly the mistake you'd make if you forgot the detour was run both ways.
Result: everyone ran roughly 680 m further than the certificate says. Six runners' watches, the race's own course map, and the certificates themselves all point at the same number — and on the evening of August 18 the organisers confirmed it, apologising to participants for a net +674.7 m. The watches weren't wrong. The paperwork was.
The organiser's own interactive route map — the “View Route Map” link on edmontonmarathon.ca. This is the line the map's 21K option draws. The organiser labels it 21,098 m — the route as they drew it is +753 m longer than its own label.
World Athletics / AIMS certificate CAN-2025-056A, measurer Marcel LaMontagne (Grade A), measured 2026-05-31, race date 2026-08-16, expires 2029-12-31. Registered via Athletics Canada. The certificate states a distance, not a drawable route — its 2026 per-kilometre waypoints are not published. The 2025 certificate's waypoints are, and they power the stairstep above.
COROS, 5,094 points, 1 s sampling, median step 2.93 m, no dropouts. Jitter-filtered 21.94 km — only 7 m of the total is sub-1.5 m noise, so this is a clean track.
One pill per 500 m of course, named for the streets it runs between and tagged with how much further my watch travelled than the posted line over that stretch — worst offender first (the small number is the segment's start km). Click a pill to zoom the map to that segment. Grey is inside GPS noise; the orange one is the turnaround.
Solid green: the 2026 course as published. Dashed gold: where the 2025 certified course differed — straight across the now-closed Wellington Bridge, and onward to the old Buena Vista turnaround. Red: a runner's actual race track. Gold markers: the certificates' fixed points. Everywhere the gold dashes are absent, the 2025 and 2026 courses are identical.
The certificate is not just a number. Its map sheet defines the course by a street-by-street list and two GPS anchors, and it states the measurement convention:
That matters twice over. It tells us the certified distance describes a specific lane discipline, not an abstract centreline. And it tells us the per-kilometre waypoints exist — which is exactly the missing piece needed to put line B on this table.
The certificate names two exact spots on the ground: the start/finish line on Jasper Av, and the turn point — a mark on the curb by a manhole on Valleyview Cres. Those coordinates are printed on a scanned map, so a couple of digits were hard to read; I settled them by testing which reading actually lands on the road instead of squinting at the image. Distance from each fixed point to each line:
My track passes 0.9 m from the certified turn point — I turned where the certificate says to turn. The posted line misses that same point by 51.7 m. At the one place where the certificate pins the course to a physical mark, the published map is the line that disagrees.
The course chopped into 500 m pieces. For each piece: how long it is on the race's map, how far my watch says I actually travelled over it, and the difference. The last two columns are how far sideways I was from their line — normal running-the-tangents drift, not a wrong turn. All figures are metres except the first column. Click any row to zoom the map to it.
| Race km | Streets | Their map | My watch | Difference | Typically off | Worst off |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.00–0.50 | Jasper Av | 500 | 507.6 | +7.6 | 2.0 | 13.5 |
| 0.50–1.00 | Jasper Av | 500 | 504.2 | +4.2 | 1.9 | 3.6 |
| 1.00–1.50 | Jasper Av | 500 | 499.9 | -0.1 | 2.7 | 6.5 |
| 1.50–2.00 | Jasper Av | 500 | 501.9 | +1.9 | 4.9 | 6.1 |
| 2.00–2.50 | Jasper Av | 500 | 499.1 | -0.9 | 4.7 | 6.1 |
| 2.50–3.00 | Jasper Av | 500 | 506.9 | +6.9 | 5.0 | 6.6 |
| 3.00–3.50 | Jasper Av → 102 Av | 500 | 492.3 | -7.7 | 2.0 | 6.1 |
| 3.50–4.00 | 102 Av | 500 | 499.9 | -0.1 | 3.4 | 5.0 |
| 4.00–4.50 | 102 Av → 130 St → 104 Av | 500 | 482.0 | -18.0 | 3.9 | 8.3 |
| 4.50–5.00 | 104 Av → 132 St → 102 Av MUP | 500 | 497.9 | -2.1 | 1.4 | 2.5 |
| 5.00–5.50 | 102 Av MUP → 102 Av → St. George's Cr | 500 | 504.1 | +4.1 | 2.6 | 3.3 |
| 5.50–6.00 | St. George's Cr | 500 | 492.0 | -8.0 | 1.6 | 3.4 |
| 6.00–6.50 | St. George's Cr → Ravine Dr | 500 | 504.9 | +4.9 | 1.7 | 3.3 |
| 6.50–7.00 | Ravine Dr | 500 | 503.7 | +3.7 | 1.3 | 2.1 |
| 7.00–7.50 | Ravine Dr → 142 St → Summit Dr | 500 | 499.4 | -0.6 | 2.1 | 4.0 |
| 7.50–8.00 | Summit Dr → Riverside Dr | 500 | 502.6 | +2.6 | 1.0 | 2.5 |
| 8.00–8.50 | Riverside Dr → 95 Av | 500 | 504.2 | +4.2 | 1.2 | 3.0 |
| 8.50–9.00 | 95 Av → 142 St → Valleyview Dr | 500 | 495.8 | -4.2 | 4.0 | 4.9 |
| 9.00–9.50 | Valleyview Dr | 500 | 506.6 | +6.6 | 1.9 | 3.7 |
| 9.50–10.00 | Valleyview Dr → 91 Av → 139 St | 500 | 493.7 | -6.3 | 0.9 | 2.3 |
| 10.00–10.50 | 139 St → 90 Av → Valleyview Cr | 500 | 500.6 | +0.6 | 0.9 | 3.1 |
| 10.50–11.00 | Valleyview Cr | 500 | 608.4 | +108.4 | 1.9 | 29.6 |
| 11.00–11.50 | Valleyview Cr → Valleyview Dr | 500 | 496.6 | -3.4 | 3.6 | 5.5 |
| 11.50–12.00 | Valleyview Dr → 90 Av → 140 St | 500 | 508.3 | +8.3 | 2.2 | 4.4 |
| 12.00–12.50 | 140 St → 91 Av → Valleyview Dr | 500 | 499.3 | -0.7 | 3.1 | 4.8 |
| 12.50–13.00 | Valleyview Dr → 142 St | 500 | 503.4 | +3.4 | 1.1 | 3.6 |
| 13.00–13.50 | 142 St → 95 Av | 500 | 496.7 | -3.3 | 1.4 | 3.5 |
| 13.50–14.00 | 95 Av → Riverside Dr | 500 | 496.1 | -3.9 | 1.9 | 3.3 |
| 14.00–14.50 | Riverside Dr → Summit Dr | 500 | 504.9 | +4.9 | 1.3 | 3.8 |
| 14.50–15.00 | Summit Dr → 142 St → Ravine Dr | 500 | 496.9 | -3.1 | 3.5 | 6.2 |
| 15.00–15.50 | Ravine Dr | 500 | 499.9 | -0.1 | 2.8 | 4.6 |
| 15.50–16.00 | Ravine Dr → St. George's Cr | 500 | 494.1 | -5.9 | 1.4 | 4.7 |
| 16.00–16.50 | St. George's Cr → 102 Av | 500 | 494.6 | -5.4 | 1.5 | 3.6 |
| 16.50–17.00 | 102 Av → 132 St | 500 | 497.0 | -3.0 | 1.5 | 3.9 |
| 17.00–17.50 | 132 St → 104 Av → 130 St | 500 | 491.9 | -8.1 | 1.8 | 3.0 |
| 17.50–18.00 | 130 St → 102 Av | 500 | 497.0 | -3.0 | 3.3 | 9.4 |
| 18.00–18.50 | 102 Av → 124 St | 500 | 506.3 | +6.3 | 3.5 | 7.6 |
| 18.50–19.00 | 124 St → Jasper Av | 500 | 500.5 | +0.5 | 7.4 | 12.0 |
| 19.00–19.50 | Jasper Av | 500 | 494.8 | -5.2 | 2.0 | 10.5 |
| 19.50–20.00 | Jasper Av | 500 | 501.7 | +1.7 | 5.4 | 8.0 |
| 20.00–20.50 | Jasper Av | 500 | 500.9 | +0.9 | 4.9 | 11.4 |
| 20.50–21.00 | Jasper Av | 500 | 500.0 | -0.0 | 2.0 | 8.7 |
| 21.00–21.50 | Jasper Av | 500 | 504.4 | +4.4 | 7.4 | 11.7 |
| 21.50–21.85 | Jasper Av | 351 | 356.4 | +5.5 | 4.0 | 7.6 |
Read the difference column. 43 of 44 pieces sit inside ordinary GPS wobble — the typical piece is out by just 4.1 m in 500. Over the whole race that adds to +98 m (0.45%), and I was a typical 2.42 m sideways from their line. I ran the route they published. There is no detour hiding in this table.
One piece breaks the pattern: Valleyview Cr, 10.50–11.00 km, at +108 m. That is the turnaround, and it is where their drawn line stops 51.7 m short of the turn point the certificate names. I ran out to the real turn and back; their map doesn't draw that bit. So this one is their drawing falling short, not me running extra.
The certified street list is a palindrome hinged on “Valleyview Cr — reverse routing”, so the turn point sits at half the certified distance. Splitting my run there:
The two halves carry 4.08% and 4% — the same rate, to within a rounding error. The excess accumulates symmetrically. That ruled out a missed turn or a one-sided error early on — and it is exactly what the real mechanism produces: an out-and-back detour is crossed once in each half, and the shortened turnaround sits at the hinge, so both halves carry the same surplus. The symmetry that first looked like "no detour anywhere" turns out to be the signature of a detour run both ways.
The +852 m between my watch and the certificate splits at its natural seam almost entirely one way:
Nearly nine tenths of the discrepancy is between the organiser's own map and the organiser's own certificate. It has nothing to do with how I ran. I tracked their published line to within 0.45%.
It isn't a sloppy drawing either. Straighten the published line until every point is within 3 m of where it was and it only loses 13 m; within 5 m, only 45 m. The same test on my GPS track loses 61 m and 104 m. Neither line is padded with wobble. Both describe a genuine 21.85-ish km path.
6 tracks from the 2026 half have been ingested and measured through the identical pipeline — same distance calculation, same certified baseline, no smoothing applied to any of them. One is set aside because that runner's watch kept recording after the finish, leaving 5 in the statistics. Beyond these, roughly forty runners have volunteered their files and a named roster of 22 is queued for ingestion. Names are withheld here; this is other people's race data and the aggregate makes the point without it. (Some of it speaks for itself anyway — public activity titles in the roster include "course too long!" and "edmonton half! +1km".)
I got one half of my prediction wrong and should say so. I wrote that other tracks would cluster tightly around mine. They don't — they spread 407 m, from 2.82% to 4.75%. That is not a cluster.
But the spread is the stronger result. If a course is simply mis-measured, every runner is long by the same amount — a constant offset. If the gap is about which line you run, you get a spread with a floor above zero. That is exactly the shape here: nobody came within +595 m of the certified distance, and even the tightest runner in the group over-read by 2.82% — still well outside the 0.5–1.5% a GPS watch is expected to add on any course.
And the median lands on the drawn route. The median over-read is +852 m; the organiser's own published line is +753 m longer than certified. Those agree to 98 m — around 0.5% of the course. The typical runner ran the map's bend-following line, and that line is roughly +753 m longer than the number on the certificate.
Every one of them passed within 2 m of the certified turn point and turned at almost exactly half their total distance. Nobody took a wrong turn. They ran the same course, on the same line, and all came up long together.
The apology explains the arithmetic. It does not explain how that arithmetic became a certificate. Three governing texts say it shouldn't have been possible, and the paper trail shows where it slipped through. This section is our own investigation, ongoing; every document is linked.
What the rules say. The World Athletics certificate carries its own kill-switch on page one: it stays valid only if the course is “unchanged in any way”, and “any modifications to the course, however minimal, will nullify this Certificate and require a new measurement to be undertaken”. Athletics Canada's course-measurement program states: “Should a course be changed in any way from one year to the next, it must be re-measured and a new certification issued.” And Athletics Canada's current written policy (March 2026) repeats the rule — then opens a door in the very next sentence: “in cases of slight alterations, a full remeasurement may not be required and an amendment to an existing certification may be issued.” No definition of “slight”. No stated arithmetic protocol. No independent check. A detour of 654 m each way plus a relocated turnaround went through a door built for slight alterations.
What the paper trail shows. The revised course — detour and new turnaround — was prepared well in advance: an Athletics Canada certificate for the “2025A West” configuration was nationally certified on June 29, 2025, eleven weeks before the bridge even closed, citing the same June 8, 2025 measurement ride as the original course. Three details on that revised certificate's own map sheet suggest the new turnaround was computed on paper rather than established on the road:
A course measured wheel-on-road gets its turnaround wherever the calibrated counter says the distance completes — a full ride cannot miss by ~342 m. A turnaround placed by subtraction can, and the organisers' own apology uses exactly that word: an error in how the adjustments were “calculated”.
The asymmetry that let it survive. Athletics Canada's certificate template voids itself “if any changes are made to the course which results in a course that is less than the stated distance”. Less than. A course that runs long does not trip the written void-clause — the certification system's tripwires all face one direction, guarding records against short courses, with nothing pointed at the direction that cost every runner in this field two and a half minutes.
The open questions — each one answerable from a specific document or by a specific person:
Athletics Canada's certificates direct inquiries to coursemeasurement@athletics.ca; the organisers direct questions to info@edmontonmarathon.ca. The full measurement report is the next document to request through those channels, and answers will be published here as they arrive — including anything that proves parts of this section wrong.
The 2025 waypoints closed the biggest gap on this page — the stairstep above is built on them. What remains open:
Everything above is derived from public documents and data. Nothing on this page is a recollection or an estimate — every source is linked so you can check it yourself.
If you think any of this is wrong, the fastest way to show it is to check the two certificates against the map data yourself — both are one click away. Corrections are welcome and will be published.
Your GPS file is one more data point toward an answer that no screenshot can give. It's measured in your own browser — the raw file never has to leave your device unless you choose to archive it — and it goes into a median, not a headline. Pick your distance:
Brown Family Sports Inc. · rebuilt 2026-08-19 · Sources: certificate CAN-2025-056A (World Athletics / AIMS, via acroad.ca) · the race's published route map · COROS GPS. Source files and the full analysis are archived; the earlier conclusion drawn from the “21K Markers” line (21.06 km) is withdrawn.