Toronto Marathon prize money

Jay Glassman, race organizer for the Toronto Marathon, doesn't think there The Waterfront race offered more than $100000 in prize money and top times,

There isn’t a park in Toronto – or any other city – big enough to host a 42-kilometre road race, a marathon organizer said Monday.

“You wouldn’t be able to mount a major marathon in any park in the world, unless it was like Banff National Park,” Jay Glassman, who puts on the GoodLife Fitness Toronto Marathon, said. “You can’t do it.”

There isn’t enough room to accommodate all the runners and the spectators in a city park or ravine, Glassman said, and safety is a concern as well should a runner fall and need help.

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Glassman was responding to complaints from Councillor Rob Ford – the leader in what a new poll Monday showed is a tightening campaign to be Toronto’s next mayor – that the city’s two major marathons cause traffic headaches that need addressing.

“I never said let’s shut down marathons,” Ford said to CFRB 1010 host Jerry Agar, adding he’d fielded 10 complaints about Sunday’s Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon.

“All I’m doing is trying to find some solution. I’m trying to think outside the box,” Ford said. “You have to find balance between traffic congestion and the benefits of these marathons.”

Ford suggested pulling the two marathons off the roads and putting them into High Park or Downsview might be a solution.

But with High Park’s perimeter measuring less then six kilometres around, runners would have to make more than seven circuits to make up the 42 km needed.

“High Park is lovely but you’d have to go around it many, many times,” Glassman said. Not to mention the fact you would lose the chance to showcase the city to international competitors and tourists.

“When you go to run the Boston Marathon or New York or Chicago you’re going as much to take part in these fantastic events and to also see the city,” he said.

The Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon said it attracted about 20,000 participants but Glassman said he believes the figure is closer to 15,000, similar to the GoodLife Fitness Toronto Marathon.

Both races contribute about $25 million each to the local economy, he said.

Glassman said runners from 55 countries are coming to GoodLife on Oct. 17.

“Can you imagine the mayor of Boston saying, ‘Gosh almighty we have to get that damn marathon off our streets, it’s causing too much tourism,’” George Smitherman, Ford’s closest competition in the Oct. 25 civic election, said of Ford’s comments. “It’s absurd.”

(source:marathonguide.com)