The new membership service, ‘ONE TOKYO GLOBAL’, was launched by the official club of the Tokyo Marathon Foundation, ONE TOKYO, in July 2024. The service is for runners outside of Japan, giving them some advantages to join the Tokyo Marathon. Although it has some benefits, I focus on describing the most important benefits of the membership.
- ‘ONE TOKYO GLOBAL’ is a new membership for foreign people, costing 30,000 JPY for a year.
- If you become the member, you could get two main benefits
- Additional two more lottery chances than normal membership
- A 3-year consecutive unsuccessful challenge
Overview of ONE TOKYO GLOBAL
| Membership period | July 1, 2024 – End of March 2025 *First year: July to the end of March. Subsequent years: April to the end of March annually. |
| Sign-up period | July 1, 2024 – End of December 2024. *First year: July to the end of December 2024. Subsequent years: April to the end of December annually. |
| Sign-up requirement | Individuals residing outside of Japan, age 19 or older, who are able to communicate in English. |
| Membership fee | 30,000 JPY |
| Payment method | Credit Card Only *The membership will be automatically renewed. |
Benefits
There are mainly two advantages to joining ONE TOKYO GLOBAL, additional lottery chances and a 3-year consecutive unsuccessful challenge. Besides those benefits, you can get some benefits, such as the right to apply as a Pace-Setter at the Tokyo Marathon, purchase ONE TOKYO Original Apparel, and join some exclusive running events.
Additional lottery chances
If you join the membership, the GLOBAL members can get two more ballot chances, according to the foundation.
The first chance is “ONE TOKYO GLOBAL Member Entry”, which is from 11:00 a.m. on August 1(Thu.) until 5:00 p.m. on August 15(Thu.), 2024 (JST). A drawing will be conducted if the number of applicants exceeds the field size of 3,000.
If the GLOBAL members can’t win the lottery, the GLOBAL members would enter “General entry” automatically as well as the non-the GLOBAL-membership applicants. I mean that the GLOBAL members don’t need to make the general entry because you will have already joined the GLOBAL membership.
Finally, if the GLOBAL members can’t win the “General entry lottery”, another secondary lottery will be held exclusively for the GLOBAL members. This is the last additional chance.
Moreover, the foundation will hold virtual run events, called “RUN as ONE – GLOBAL Virtual Run Series”. According to the foundation (https://onetokyo.org/en/benefits), the Global members can join the event for free. This virtual run will give you more lottery chances. Similar events have been held in Japan, and several of my friends won the lottery, although the successful applicants were not so many, the foundation says that 40 runners can win the lottery per event. You can get more information about the virtual run, please see this site (https://tmf-virtualrun.jp/en/).
A 3-year consecutive unsuccessful challenge
If you fail to win the lottery for three consecutive years and keep joining the Global member, you could get “ONE TOKYO three consecutive unsuccessful member challenge”. The field size is 3,800 and for Marathon only, but you can get an additional lottery chance. To tell the truth, I won the same challenge for Japanese in 2023, after I had lost the lottery from 2020 to 2022. I think this challenge is very useful because winning the lottery is difficult can’t win the lottery.
Please make sure that you need to keep joining the Global membership for more than three years to get this challenge.
