Two of the fastest marathon courses on earth, two very different races. Here's every stat, side by side, to help you pick.
Indicative — based on GPX data. Both courses normalised to start at 0m.
✓ marks the better number on that stat.
Both are open-registration European marathons, but their courses couldn't be more different. Amsterdam is dead flat (55m of gain) with a 2:03:30 course record; Paris is considerably hillier (225m of gain) with a slower 2:04:21 mark despite pulling in a far bigger field — over 57,000 finishers against Amsterdam's roughly 23,000.
Paris runs in spring through some of the most photographed streets in the world; Amsterdam runs in October on a flatter, quieter course through the city's canals and outskirts. For pure speed and a smaller field, Amsterdam is the better bet; for scale and scenery, Paris is hard to match.