Sydney has become the newest city to be added to the international roster of elite global marathons. It joins New York, Boston, Chicago, London, Berlin and Tokyo in March from next year as one of the ‘marathon majors’.
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00:00The majors are considered the most elite marathons in the world, of course there's plenty around
00:07Australia from regional towns such as Port Stephens to the Gold Coast and even bigger
00:12cities like Melbourne and Sydney obviously have in the last couple of decades really
00:16tried to grow the size of their marathons along with the advent of running.
00:21But to see not just the increase in the number of overall people running in this Sydney Marathon
00:26and particularly over the last two years rapidly growing from about 5,000 entrants
00:30to around 25,000 in this year's sold out marathon, it's been a massive growth and the Premier
00:38Chris Mins says this is particularly significant on the matter of economic benefit.
00:44The economic impact on the city is fantastic, $300 million over a decade but you can just
00:51imagine the number of people that see Sydney on television or attend the city as a spectator
00:57or a participant who want to bring their family and friends in the years ahead.
01:00I think the multiplier on that is much, much bigger and we'll be able to see the tourism
01:05benefits of being one of the majors in the years ahead.
01:09It's going to move forward a bit in the calendar to August 31st next year, now whether or not
01:14August 31st or the last Sunday in August becomes its regular home on the majors calendar remains
01:19to be seen.
01:20Of course when you're trying to balance seven marathon races they do try to space them out
01:25but invariably, particularly in Olympic years or years of other elite events and meets for
01:31marathon runners, there is a degree of compromise that has to happen there.
01:36But one of the race's leadership, Simon Bryan, he spoke a lot about the idea of how adjusting
01:41to this kind of event means you're also seeing a lot more people not just running in the
01:46race but also coming to watch the events as well.
01:50For the running community of Australia and obviously Sydney it's massive, I mean the
01:54world majors is the pinnacle of running as I mentioned before so to see Sydney become
01:59part of that global stage is incredible.
02:03So we will see an uplift in running, the boom of running will continue no doubt and we hope
02:08to jump on the back of that as well.
02:11So that's Simon Bryan talking about the boom of running now, that's a very observable thing
02:15not just in marathon competition where we've seen the amount of amateur runners really
02:19increase but also in things such as run clubs which have become the pride of many big and
02:24small towns across Australia in the way they've really engaged the young people and that's
02:29been a concerted thing both the New South Wales Government has noticed as well as major
02:33events like the Sydney Marathon that have really tried to tap into drawing those people
02:38into becoming part of the running community and participating in these events.
02:43Now of course I did say that the event would change to some degree in terms of its start
02:47date as well those wishing to actually enter the race they'll now have to enter a ballot
02:51draw, there'll be some elite runners who are invited as well as those who can enter the
02:56race through charitable means by raising significant amounts of money for charity or even through
03:01these running tourism companies but most people will have to enter these ballots, both race
03:06directors as well as the New South Wales Government say there will be quotas to ensure there are
03:11local runners not just from New South Wales but also Australia in that ballot getting
03:15preferential treatment, there's about 35,000 people expected in 2025's Sydney edition.