The threat of coronavirus pandemic, the New York City Marathon is in line with its 50th anniversary in November, conducted a marathon but was eventually canceled. The event has more than 50,000 runners, 10,000 volunteers and roughly a million fans.
In the New York marathon, the runners and thousands of volunteers will mark the starting line to a at Fort Wadsworth on Staten Island, where they will stretch and wait for hours to be called to the start at the foot of the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge. The runners will unleash their adrenaline while they wait for a cannon sound to signal the start of the marathon. Due to the event’s cancellation, they are entitled to choose the option to run the race virtually from Oct. 17 to Nov. 1 or will be able to choose to receive a refund or to defer their entry to the race during the next years of the marathon
City officials and New York Road Runners who supervises and organizes the event, decided to cancel the marathon due to public health risks.
“At some point, we are going to be waiting for runners on finish lines again,” said Michael Capiraso, the chief executive of New York Road Runners. He said that they have to postpone the event for the safety of all. Even though the decision is heartbreaking but they won’t risk the lives of many.
“There was hope, but that turned to uncertainty, and given what we have seen the past months, this was really the only decision,” Capiraso said.
Aliphine Tuliamuk, who won the U.S. Olympic marathon trials in February, was disappointed with the cancellation of the said marathon. After the Tokyo Games postponed a year, to 2021, she had planned to run New York to condition her body for next year. When the Olympics were postponed, she wanted to use New York to be at shape and ever-ready of the Games in 2021.
“I sort of knew this was coming,” Tuliamuk said. “After what we have been through the past four months, it’s the right call.”
White House officials have released advisories to the public about another wave of infections this autumn. Just like before, they strongly discourage public gatherings and to abide the social distancing guidelines. Moreover, cases were climbing upin 27 states over the previous two weeks last Wednesday.
“I worry about their ability to get through the pandemic,” Rich Harshbarger, the chief executive at Running U.S.A., an industry trade group, said of the organizations that manage races. “The question isn’t how do we respond, it’s how do we get through this?”
Still, London and Chicago marathons did not yet change their schedule at autumn but organizers are planning yet to hold them for many reasons. The Tokyo Marathon was rescheduled at March only with only elite runners. But without ticket sales in the sport, organizers need money from casual participants to help pay for the elite field’s prizes and fees for the event.
“In my personal experience,” he says, “heart rates are higher at the same relative intensity when you wear a mask.” Some people also could experience lightheadedness during familiar workouts while masked, says Len Kravitz, a professor of exercise science at the University of New Mexico.
The marathon is the primary and income generating event and among the main revenue generators for the organization, which collects a little more than $100 million each year but had to cancel two other major events in the spring will give a major fallback of revenues. New York Road Runners carries cancellation insurance for the marathon, which will help ease what will be a significant blow. According to tax filings, those races that have the total collection running organization’s $41 million in race entry fees in 2018, the last year for which figures are readily be grasped.
Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York had expressed his statement that the chances for postponing of the marathon were unjustifiable. He called the marathon as “the last piece of the puzzle” in terms of reopening the city to redeem the economic turmoil of the city.
“I think it’s fair to say it’s going to be a while before we’re comfortable with any large gathering,” the mayor said then.
