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Apr-13-2006
World Marathon Majors Opens at Boston
by David Monti
(c) Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved
They started with the working title "Big Five" when the race directors of the Berlin, Boston, Chicago, London and New York City marathons met last August in Helsinki during the IAAF World Championsihps in Athletics to discuss a possible alliance between their races. Choosing Mary Wittenberg, the ING New York City Marathon race director as their spokesperson, the five marathons later told the media and running industry officials who had gathered for a reception at a restaurant along the World Championships marathon course that the five marathons remained "fierce competitors" but would now be cooperating for their mutual benefit, seeking to lift the prestige and profile of the sport.
It wasn't until January 23 when the five directors --David Bedford (London), Guy Morse (Boston), Mark Milde (Berlin), Carey Pinkowski (Chicago) and
Wittenberg-- announced the formation of the first ever World Marathon Majors, a two-year series where athletes would score points in these five marathons --plus the IAAF World Championships and Olympic Games marathons-- towards a final jackpot of $1,000,000 to be split between the top man and women.
"This is one of the most significant changes in the history of our sport,"
said Bedford at the time. "The World Marathon Majors Series marks the start of a new era of growth and excitement for our sport."
With Monday's BAA Boston Marathon, the series begins and the first five male and female finishers will receive, respectively, 25, 15, 10, 5 and 1 point based soley on finish position. At the Flora London Marathon six days later, the first five men and women will be awarded points in the same fashion, and the chase for the jackpot will begin in earnest.
"I want to reiterate how excited we all are to begin this new world in terms of long distance running," said Guy Morse in a conference call with reporters last week. "Everybody is looking with anticipation to the start of this series, starting in Boston on Patriots' Day and continueing in London on St. Georges Day, the patron saint of England, the following weekend. It should be the beginning of a great time for our sport."
Although the series will function on a two-year cycle, after the first year their will be two cycles going at once: 2006/2007, 2007/2008, 2008/2009, etc. This will allow the $1 million jackpot to be awarded every year.
Places in the elite fields of these five marathons are already scarce and coveted, and the introduction of the series will increase further the desire of managers to place their athletes in these marathons over others.
"There's a definite incentive for elite athletes to look at Boston and Londonin the spring, then Berlin, New York and Chicago," said Carey Pinkowski. I mean, obviously, we're funding this first prize payout... and that's just the first offering. I think surely, in addition to the prize purses and the payouts we have, it's a different added incentive that's caught the attention of the top athletes."
Athletes must finish at least one qualifying race in each year of a series, and if an athlete runs more than four qualifying races, only his or her best four races will be counted in one series. If the series is tied at the end, the tie will be broken by 1) any head-to-head results in any qualifying races run by those two athletes or 2) if there were no head-to-head results between the tied athletes, the winner will be determined by a majority vote by the five race directors.
While there are no concrete plans to expand the series to include more races, the five race directors haven't ruled it out. "I guess it's already been mentioned, there is room for more marathons, but they would need to fulfill the criteria, which is to reach the size of the races that we have, to have a women's and men's field, and to have the elite runners participate in their own races," said Mark Milde. "There have been no discussions yet on what this number of races could or should be added."
With 30,646 finishers last Sunday, the Paris International Marathon would seem to the the next race in line. Its finisher total surpassed Berlin's from 2005 (albeit by only 62 people) and the race has strong prize money and elite fields.
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