The ballot for next year’s TCS London Marathon has opened on the eve of the 2024 event.

A world record 578,000 people entered the ballot for this year’s event which takes place on Sunday, making it the most popular marathon in the world.

More than 50,000 people, a record number, are expected to take part on what is due to be a dry and bright day with temperatures up to 12C.

There will be 30 seconds of applause before Sunday’s race in memory of last year’s elite men’s race winner Kelvin Kiptum who died in a car accident in February at the age of 24.

Kiptum set a new London Marathon record of two hours, one minute and 25 seconds last year with his third win and set a new world record of two hours and 35 seconds in Chicago in October.

This year’s race will mark the first time that wheelchair and non-disabled athletes have received the same prize money for a marathon.

All four winners of the elite races will receive £44,000, with the runner-up earning £24,000 and third place taking home £18,000.

David Weir, who will be racing his 25th consecutive London Marathon on Sunday and has won eight times, said he had not expected the change to happen in his lifetime.

Event director Hugh Brasher said the event will be “more inclusive than before” with support for more than 200 disabled participants as well as a faith space and a quiet space for neurodivergent participants in the finish area.

There are female urinals, sanitary products available for anyone who needs them, and a family support area which includes a private breastfeeding area.

Jasmin Paris, the first woman to complete the ultra-endurance Barkley Marathons, will start the elite women’s race at 9.25am on Sunday before Dame Kelly Holmes, who won two gold medals at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, starts the elite men’s race and mass event at 10am.

Among the runners will be 20 MPs and peers, the most in the event’s history, including Chancellor Jeremy Hunt.

There will also be a host of celebrities including EastEnders cast members Emma Barton and Jamie Borthwick who will run as part of a storyline in which their characters Honey and Jay run in memory of Jay’s late wife, Lola (played by Danielle Harold), who died of a brain tumour in 2023.

In the show Honey and Jay will take part for a fictional brain tumour charity, while Barton is fundraising for BBC Children in Need and Borthwick for Prostate Cancer UK.

Film crews will be located at several locations along the route, including Tower Bridge and The Mall, and the marathon will feature in Monday night’s episode of EastEnders at 7.30pm on BBC One.

The actors previously ran in 2019 for Dementia Revolution as part of ‘Babs’ Army’. Dame Barbara Windsor, who played Peggy Mitchell, passed away in 2020 after a long battle with Alzheimer’s.

Other famous faces will include comedian and TV presenter Romesh Ranganathan, running for suicide prevention charity Campaign Against Living Miserably the day after starting his new Radio 2 Saturday morning show after taking over from Claudia Winkleman.

Former Doctor Who actor Christopher Eccleston will run for Big Issue while Ruth Wilson, star of His Dark Materials, Luther and The Affair, is raising money for Alzheimer’s Research UK, the charity which supported her family after her father’s dementia diagnosis.

McFly drummer and former Strictly Come Dancing champion Harry Judd is running for The Children’s Trust while singer/songwriter Tom Grennan is supporting Shelter.

Comedian and TV presenter Joel Dommett is running for Shooting Star Children’s Hospice while The Only Way Is Essex star Chloe Meadows, who suffers from ulcerative colitis, will take part in her first TCS London Marathon, raising money for the charity Crohn’s & Colitis UK.

Hardest Geezer Russ Cook, who finished running the entire length of Africa on April 7, will take part in support of the Running Charity.

Manchester United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe will take part in his eighth London Marathon before heading to Wembley to watch his team take on Coventry for a place in the FA Cup final.

RuPaul’s Drag Race UK Kitty Scott-Claus and Cheryl Hole will be joined by RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars artist Silky Nutmeg Ganache, on the Rainbow Row main stage in Butcher Row, Limehouse, a 250m stretch of road just past the 21-mile mark of the course.

Rainbow Row was created in 2022 to celebrate the LGBTQIA+ community.

This 2024 event’s charity of the year is Samaritans with a team of runners led by Dave Lock, a management consultant from Woodford Green, east London, who is also known as the “Samaritans running telephone”, in his 25th consecutive London Marathon for the charity.

The 2023 marathon, the world’s biggest annual one day fundraising event, raised £63 million for thousands of charities.

Mr Brasher said there are numerous “mitigations” in place to prevent protesters disrupting the marathon, telling reporters at a press conference earlier this week: “Co-existence and togetherness is what the London Marathon is all about.

“We hope that message is the message that will resonate with anyone who does think this should be a good thing to disrupt, because it isn’t.”

The London Marathon app, powered by TCS, can be used to track those taking part and to send a motivational Belief Booster message which will appear on a big screen at the Halfway point and on the finish gantry on The Mall.

More than 14,000 children are registered to complete a distance of either one mile or 2.6km as part of the TCS Mini London Marathon on Saturday.

Charity partner WWF-UK’s celebrity supporter Joe Wicks will lead warm-ups and hand out medals.

– The 2025 TCS London Marathon will be held on Sunday April 27. The ballot will close on Friday April 26. To enter, visit tcslondonmarathon.com