World athletics to launch a stand alone marathon championship in 2030

Pretty easy to do so, honestly.

Though the way you pose you "challenge" is a bit naive; often runners have made their intentions and non-availability clear, which avoids their national association (and the athlete) the embarrassment of them being selected and declining.

I don’t understand. I should just be able to sign up with Team for Kids or something and pay like $4k. That way I can race the worlds best and break 4 on the same day

Last time I did this, I beat Daniel Do Nascimento

I suspect that's what they're planning to do. In the World Athletics press release, they stated the new marathon championship is "conceived in close partnership with those who have made the marathon the global phenomenon it is today, with full details of those partnerships to be announced in the coming months."

That sounds to me like they're partnering with WMM.

worldathletics.org

World Athletics to introduce standalone World Marathon Championships from 2030 | PRESS-RELEASES | World Athletics

Athens emerges as preferred host for inaugural edition; Athens Marathon The Authentic achieves Elite Label status as plan launches to secure hosting rights

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Why alternate years. We already have working models of sports that generate billions. Annual championships retain fans! Which is why grand slam could've worked

Not sure why WA doesn't want to put it as part of the road running championship.

Mile, 5k, half, and full marathon over 2 days. Make it a running festival

Could also combine performances from all 4 events to get a real road running champion nation

This one is easy. It will dilute competition. There are no half marathon or short road race specialists. The pool for that race is elite marathoners and top track athletes.

Agreed. I think track was fine where it was with Olympic, and 2 world marathon championships every 4 years. I guess WA feels too many top athletes skip the worlds, and even Olympic, marathons - but that is a reflection of the prize purse payout and lack of appearance fees compared to majors. IDK what the solution is. Maybe this?

We pretty much have a track championship every year already - 2 worlds, olys, and now the suped up diamond league final. Should have just added a marathon or half to that.

The road running championship doesn't have deep enough pockets and world athletics isn't going to pay the big money themselves. They need to piggy-back off the WMM races that have massive budgets and can pay the elite athletes a ton of money. The biggest names get $100k+ to race and opportunity to get another $100k+ if they win plus various other incentives at the WMM races. So whatever this championship race is it needs to be able to pay the top runners comparable money. That's why the top names don't ever run the world championships, the prize money is small and no appearance fees. Only the olympics is worth their effort because countries offer incentives for winning medals and sponsors have big bonuses for olympics. So the money needs to be competitive (or better) than the current WMM races... And really it needs to be better, because if New York is offering someone $100k to show up, but this new 'championship' race is held at Chicago, if they can't reasonably make $100k they might still end up going to run New York. The money has to be there to get all the top runners in one spot. I could see each WMM having to put a piece of money into a pool every year to help fund this extra bonus money for the championship race, and if they don't participate then they aren't considered a WMM anymore.

The road mile is being removed from the RR champs after this years edition

Taking the marathon out of the World Champs hopefully means they can move it to a better/cooler part of the year. I also like the suggestion to add a team competition like the old World Cup marathon. Making it part of a WMM or mass start race weekend would mean they have enough money to offer a big enough prize purse that the best runners might actually show up. However, I think they should skip the race in Olympic years so the fields don't get (more) diluted.

I think it helps highlight an important event in distance running, so it’s good.

I would propose that teams be allowed 4 entrants and make it a team competition like Cross Country. This will discourage DNFs